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1833. 



THE 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, 



IN THEIR 



EXTERNAL DIVISION; 



EXHIBITED IN A 



COURSE OF LECTURES 



DELIVERED IN CLINTON HALL, 

IN THE WINTER OF 1831-2, UNDER THE APPOINTMENT OF THE 
UNIVERSITY OF THE CITY OP NEW YORK. 



BY 

CHARLES P. MILVAINE, D.D. 

K — -— — » 

BISHOP OF OHIO, 

AND PRESIDENT OF KENYON COLLEGE. 



LONDON: 

H. FISHER, R. FISHER, & P. JACKSON. 




jlO 







33 



• « « 



••« 



TO 



THE RT. HON. GEORGE, LORD KENYON, 

D.C.L., F.S A., &c. 

THE RT. HON. JAMES, LORD GAMBIER, 

G.C.B., &c 

THE RT. HON. NICHOLAS, LORD BEXLEY, 

D.C.L., F.R.S., &c. 
AND 

GEORGE W. MARRIOTT, ESQ. 

ENGLISH TRUSTEES OF KENYON COLLEGE, 
IN THE STATE OF OHIO ; 

THIS EDITION OF A SERIES OF LECTURES 

ON THE 

EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY, 

AS A TESTIMONY OF SINCERE RESPECT, 

BY THEIR FAITHFUL SERVANT, 

THE AUTHOR. 

» 

Brooklyn. New York : 
January, 1833. 



PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION. 



The English friends of the excellent Author of 
these Lectures on the Evidences of Christianity, to 
whom he has referred the question of their publi- 
cation in Britain, are unanimous in deciding that 
they will constitute a valuable addition to- our 
sacred literature. On a subject which has been 
repeatedly treated, and often by men of distin- 
guished talent and learning, much that is essentially 
new is not to be expected. Yet, the specific pur- 
pose for which a work of this kind is undertaken, 
may cause the main arguments to be placed in such 
a position, while some of the subordinate topics 
may be exhibited in so strong a light, as to give 
to the whole, or nearly the whole, an air of life 
and freshness well fitted to convey high gratifica- 
tion in union with rich instruction. Several, in- 
deed, of the trains of reasoning pursued by the 
Author seem to be entirely original ; at the same 
time that they are conducted with considerable 
skill, and, by their accumulative property, lead to an 

a2 



y'l PREFACE. 

ultimate issue that miist make a deep and salutary 
impression on the minds of any candid investigator 
of this ever momentous subject. It may, farther, 
be added, that the christian feeling, benevolence, 
and warmth, with which the author conducts his 
inquiry in its several stages, honourably distinguish 
this work from many of its predecessors ; while 
they shew that, instead of regarding christian truth 
as supplying matter for a pleasing speculation, he 
considers it as that which can alone make men 
truly holy, happy, honourable, and useful, and 
transform the world from an Aceldama to the Para- 
dise of God. 

1st of May, 1833. 



* * At the earnest request of Bishop M'llvaine's 
friends above alluded to, the superintendence of 
this edition has been kindly undertaken by one of 
their number, Dr. Gregory, of the Royal Military 
Academy. 



Vll 



PREFACE. 



TuE history of the following lectures may he given in few 
words. In the autumn of eighteen hundred and thirty-one, 
when the University of the city of New York had not yet 
organized its classes, nor appointed its instructors, it was 
represented to the Council that a course of lectures on the 
Evidences of Christianity was exceedingly needed, and w^ould 
probahly be well attended by young men of intelligence and 
education. On the strength of such representation, the author 
of this volume was requested, by the Chancellor of the Uni- 
versity, to undertake the work desired ; not, he is well aware, on 
account of any special qualifications for a task, which many 
others in the city w^ould have executed much more satisfactorily ; 
but because, having lectured on the Evidences of Christianity 
while connected with the Military Academy at West Point, he 
was supposed to be in a great measure prepared at this time for 
a similar effort. It was under a considerable misunderstanding 
of the extent to which the proposed engagement would be 
expected to go, that the author expressed a hesitating willing- 
ness to assume its responsibility. The next thing was the 
honour of an appointment, by the Council of the University, to 
the office of " Lecturer on the Evidences of Christianity." 
Alarmed at the prospect of so much additional work, but de- 
sirous of serving a rising and most hopeful institution, as well as 
of advocating the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ; he consented 



VIU PREFACE. 

to the appointment, with the expectation of finding, in the 
manuscripts of the former course, enough preparation already 
made, to prevent any considerable increase to his accumulated 
engagements. What was his disappointment, on inspecting 
those compositions, to find himself so little satisfied with their 
plan and whole execution, that, instead of attempting to mend 
their infirmities and supply their deficiences, it seemed much 
better to lay them all aside in their wonted retirement, and begin 
anew both in study and writing ! Thus, in the midst of ex- 
hausting duties, as a parish minister, and in a state of health by 
no means well established, he was unexpectedly committed to 
an amount of labour which, had it been all foreseen, he would 
not have dared to undertake. Meanw^hile, a class of many 
hundreds, from among the most intelligent in the community, 
and composed, to a considerable extent, of members of the 
" New York Young Men's Society for Intellectual and Moral 
Improvement," had been formed, and was waiting the com- 
mencement of the course. A more interesting, important, or 
attentive assemblage of mind and character, no one need wish to 
address. The burden of preparation was delightfully compen- 
sated by the pleasure of speaking to such an audience. The 
lecturer could not but feel an engrossing impression of the 
privilege, as well as responsibility, of such an opportunity of 
usefulness. He would thankfully acknowledge the kindness of 
divine Providence, in his having been permitted and persuaded 
to embrace it, and for a measure of health, in the prosecution of 
its duties, far beyond what he had reason to expect. His debt 
of gratitude is inexpressibly increased by the cheering informa- 
tion that much spiritual benefit was derived from the lectures by 
some whose minds, at the outset of the course, were far from the 
belief of the blessed Gospel, as a revelation from God. 

The idea of publication did not originate with the author. 
He began the work with no such view. Had it not been for the 
favourable opinion of the Council of the University, as to the 



PREFACE, ix 

probable usefulness of the step, and the urgent advice of dis- 
tinguished individuals of that body; he would have shrunk 
from contributing another volume to a department of divinity 
already so well supplied by authors of the highest grade of 
learning and intellect. After the recent lectures of Daniel 
Wilson, D.D., the present excellent bishop of Calcutta, not to 
speak of many other and earlier works in the same field, it will 
not seem surprising to the present author if some should think 
it quite presumptuous, at least unnecessary, for a writer of such 
inferior qualifications, in every sense, to offer an additional 
publication. But all have not read, nor may all be expected to 
read, the books which have already been issued. Nothing can 
be more conclusive; and yet, to multitudes of readers, they 
must remain as if they were not. A work of inferior claims 
may find readers, and do much good, in consequence of local 
circumstances drawing attention to its pages, where all others 
would be overlooked. Vessels of moderate draught may go up 
the tributary streams of public thought, and may deal advanta- 
geously with the minds of men, where others of heavier tonnage 
could nftver reach. Should such be an advantage of this unpre- 
tending publication, its apparent presumption may be pardoned, 
and its author will, by no means, have laboured in vain. That 
many faults will be found in it, he cannot but anticipate. 
That any have arisen from haste, carelessness, or want of pains, 
he will not dishonour his sense of duty, however he might 
excuse his understanding, by the plea. He can only say that 
he has tried to do well, and to do good. If, in the opinion of 
any qualified critic, he has succeeded, he desires to regard it as a 
matter of thankfulness to God, not of praise to himself. If he 
has failed, let the infirmities of the lecturer, not the merits of 
the subject, receive the blame. 

It will be observed by those who composed the class which 
the author addressed, that in this volume are three lectures 
which they did not hear: the third, eleventh, and last; beside 



X PREFACE. 

a large amount of matter connected with the others, which, for 
want of time, was omitted in their delivery. . That many books 
have been consulted in the preparation of all, and that the 
author is greatly indebted to the more learned labours of 
numerous predecessors, he need not acknowledge. 

It seems unnecessary to mention more particularly than is 
done in the margin of the lectures, the various works from 
which assistance or authority has been derived. Wherever 
quotations occur they are marked, and almost always credited 
to their respective authors. The elaborate work of Lardner on 
the Credibility of the Gospel History, and the books of 
Josephus, being more frequently cited than any other, it may 
be well to mention that the edition of Josephus referred to in 
the marginal notes is that of Whiston's translation, in one 
volume octavo, Lond. 1828 ; and the quotations from Lardner 
are out of the quarto edition of his works, in five volumes, 
London, 1815. 

And now, without further preface, let this humble attempt to 
promote the saving truth of Jesus Christ be committed to Him 
whose blessing alone can honour it. Should it receive but little 
favour from man, and yet be made, in the Lord's hand, the 
instrument of leading some misguided soul from the darkness 
and barrenness of infidelity to the precious light and hope of the 
Gospel, its name will then be written in heaven, and its un- 
worthy author will have a rich reward. 

C. P. M. 



XL 



ERRATA. 

Page 120, note : for John iii. 3, read John iii. 2. 

160, line 6 : for certainly, read certainty. 

220, line 15 : for contensions, read contentions. 

line 21 : for places, read places. 

239, note : for Luke xxi. 34, read Luke xxi. 24. 

332, line 5 : place a full stop after "occurred." 

393, line 13 : strike out the double commas. 



CONTENTS. 



Lecture I. 
Introductory Observations 1 

Lecture IL 
Authenticity of the New Testament . • . . • . 29 

Lecture IIL 
Authenticity and Integrity of the New Testament . . 56 

Lecture IV. 
Credibility of the Gospel History 90 

Lecture V. 
Divine Authority of Christianity, from Miracles . , .118 

Lecture VI. 
Argument from Mirp'^es^ continued 148 

Lecture VII. 
Divine Authority of Christianity, from Prophecy . .180 

Lecture VIII. 
Argument, from Prophecy, continued 214 

Lecture IX. 
Divine Authority of Christianity, from its Propagation . 253 

Lecture X. 
Divine Authority of Christianity, from its Fruits . . 289 

Lecture XI. 
Argument, from the Fruits of Christianity, continued . 325 

Lecture XII. 
Summary and Application of the Argument .... 368 

Lecture XIII. 

Inspiration and Divine Authority of the Scriptures, with 
Concluding Observations 407 



EVIDENCES OF CHRISTIANITY. 



LECTURE I. 



INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS, 



I APPEAR before those who have come this evening 
to favour me with their attention, as sustaining, 
under appointment from the University of the city of 
New York, the office of Lect''*'»r on the Evidences 
of Christianity. It is but justice .0 my own feelings, 
to assure you that I had not thought of entering 
upon so much responsibility until earnestly requested 
to do so by respected individuals belonging to the 
council of that institution. I am not without much 
apprehension of having ventured far beyond my 
qualifications, in acceding to their desires. When I 
think of the many in this city of much superior fur- 
niture of mind and spirit, to whom the office might 
have been intrusted, and of my own daily and 
engrossing occupations in the duties of the ministry, 
leaving so little time or strength for any other occu- 
pation, however important, it is a matter almost of 
alarm that I find myself committed to a series of 
lectures, for which the very best intellect, the sound- 
est judgment, and the most deliberate study, are so 
much needed. But having undertaken the work, 
I trust the Lord has ordered the step in wisdom, 

B 



2 LECTURE I. 

and, if I seek his guidance, will enable me to go for- 
ward in a strength above my own ; so that I may 
be the instrument, under his hand, of contributing 
something to promote the improvement and everlast- 
ing happiness of those to whom I may have the plea- 
sure of speaking. 

The present lecture will be exclusively of an intro- 
ductory kind. I pause at the threshold, in remem- 
brance of the word and promise of God \ '' In all 
thy ways acknowledge Him, and He shall direct 
thy steps'' I would devoutly acknowledge God as 
the omniscient witness in this undertaking ; the 
only source of wisdom, strength, and blessing, *' from 
whom all holy desires, all good counsels, and all 
just works do proceed.'' May his Holy Spirit, 
through the mediation of his Son, our Lord Jesus 
Christ, who is " the way, the truth, and the life," 
*' God blessed for ever,'' condescend to guide our 
way and help our infirmities, that all may see and 
embrace the truth. 

The subject to which we are to direct our atten- 
tion has engaged the powers of wise, learned, and 
good men, in almost all ages since the promulgation 
of Christianity. Minds of every class, and in all 
departments of intellectual occupation, have, directly 
or indirectly, by design or unwittingly, contributed 
materials for its elucidation. Thus it has come to 
pass that the difficulty of an appropriate exhibition 
of the evidences of Christianity is rather on the side of 
selection and arrangement, and the just proportion- 
ing of arguments, than of their sufficient multiplica- 
tion. To give the various branches of the subject 
their just measure of relief and prominence; to 
determine what should be displayed strongly and 
completely, and what should be sketched with a 
lighter pencil, and placed in the background of the 
picture; to adjust the numerous parts in such sym- 
metry as will present the whole with the most undi- 



jLECTURE I. d 

vided and overcoming effect, is a difficulty of no 
little magnitude, where attention to space and time 
is of so much consequence as in the present under- 
taking. The nicest discrimination, the most logical 
taste, and a talent for extensive combination, may 
here find room for the exercise of all their powers. 
The danger is that one will lose himself amidst the 
wide-spread and accumulated treasures of illustra- 
tion and evidence ; that he will fail so entirely in 
their classification as to see and exhibit them con- 
fusedly and unjustly, and, for want of a good disci- 
pline among his own thoughts, will lead out his forces 
in feeble detail, instead of forming them into com- 
pact masses, and meeting the enemy on every side 
with a self- sustained combination of strength. 

Before we proceed to the main question on which 
our subsequent lectures are to be employed, it will 
be well to call your attention to, - 

I. The high importance of the investigation on 
which we are about to enter. You are to unite with 
me in examining the grounds on which the religion 
of the gospel claims to be received, to the exclusion 
of every other religion in the world, as containing 
the only way of duty and the only foundation of a 
sinner's hope of salvation ; so that you may be enabled 
to answer, satisfactorily to your own consciences, 
and to all who may ask a reason of your belief, this 
great question : Is the religion of Jesus Christ, as 
exhibited in the New Testament, a revelation from 
God, and consequently possessed of a sovereign right 
to universal faith and obedience ? 

There are considerations intrinsically belonging to 
this question which place it in an aspect of unrivalled 
importance. 

We must have the religion of Christ, or nonei A 
very little reflection will make it apparent, that the 
question as to the truth of Christianity is not one of 
preference between two rival systems of doctrine, 

b2 



4 LECTURE I. 

having conflicting claims, and nearly balanced argu- 
ments and benefits ; it is not whether the gospel is 
more true and salutary than some other mode of 
religion, which, though inferior, would still secure 
many of the most essential and substantial benefits 
for which religion is desirable. But it is no other 
than the plain and solemn question, Shall we believe 
in the faith of Christ, or in none ? Shall we receive 
and be comforted by the light which the gospel has 
thrown over all our present interests and future pros- 
pects ; or shall our condition in this life — our rela- 
tion to the future — what we are to be, and what we 
are to receive hereafter and for ever, be left in ap- 
palling, impenetrable darkness? Such is the real 
question, when we inquire whether Christianity is a 
revelation from God. Do any ask the reason ? Be- 
cause, if such be the divine origin and authority of 
the religion of Christ, there can be no other religion. 
It claims not only to stand, but to stand alone. It 
demands not only that we believe it, but that, in 
doing so, we consider ourselves as denying the truth 
of every other system of faith. Like the one living 
and true God, whose seal and character it bears, it 
is jealous, and will not share its honour with an- 
other ; but requires us to believe that, as there is but 
one Lord, so there is but one faith, the truth as it is 
in Jesus, On the other hand, if Christianity be not 
of divine origin, it is no religion ; its essential doc- 
trines must be false ; its whole structure baseless. 
Suppose then, for a moment, that such were the 
case, what could we substitute for the gospel ? We 
must either plunge into the abyss of atheism, or find 
something in the regions of paganism that would 
answer ; or be content with the religion of Moham- 
med ; or else find what our nature wants in that 
which is unjustly distinguished as the Religion of 
Nature, in other words, we must become Deists, 
But is there a creed among the countless absurdities 



LECTURE I. O 

of pagan belief and worship, which any of us could 
be persuaded to adopt ? Could we be convinced of 
the prophetic character of the Arabian impostor, and 
receive as of divine authority the professed revela- 
tions and unrighteous features of the Koran, after 
having rejected such a book as the New Testament, 
and such evidences as those of Jesus ? Where 
else could we flee ? To atheism ? But that is the 
gulf in which all religions are lost. Darkness is on 
the face of the deep. Nothing remains that does 
not acknowledge the divine revelation of Christianity, 
but the self-styled religion of nature, deism. And 
what shall be said of this ? I am unable to give an 
account of it more definite than that it is the denial 
of Christianity, on the one hand, and of atheism on 
the other, and is to be found somewhere between 
these two infinitely distant extremes ; but is never 
stationary, changing place with the times ; accom- 
modating its character to the disposition of every 
disciple, and permitting any one to assume the name 
of Deist who will only believe these two articles of 
faith, that there is a God, and that Christianity is 
untrue. Such is the religion which, according to 
Paine, " teaches us, without the possibility of being 
mistaken j all that is necessary or proper to be 
known/' And yet, notwithstanding this boasted 
fulness and infallibility of instruction, there is no 
agreement among Deists as to what their natural 
religion consists in, or as to the truth of what some 
of them consider its most fipidamental doctrines* 
Their chief writers are altogether at variance as to 
whether there is any distinction between right and 
wrong, other than in the law of the land, or the 
customs of society ; whether there is a Providence ; 
whether God is to be worshipped in prayer and 
praise, or the practice of virtue is not the only wor- 
ship required ; whether the practice of virtue forbids 
or encourages deceit, suicide, revenge, adultery, and 



6 LECTURE I. 

all uncleanness ; whether the soul is mortal or immor- 
tal ; whether God has any concern with human con- 
duct. Now, without spending a moment upon the 
question as to what evidence or what adaptation to 
the wants of men and of sinners, deism could pretend 
to, after the rejection of evidence and excellence 
such as those of the gospel; let me ask whether 
deism can with any propriety be called religion ? 
Does that deserve the name of a system of religious 
faith, which has no settled doctrine upon the most 
essential points of belief and practice ? which may 
acknowledge as many contradictory forms, at the 
same moment, as it has disciples, and never could 
remain long enough in one position or under one 
countenance, for the most skilful pencil to take its 
portrait? But, aside from all this, it is too notorious 
to be argued, that whatever pretensions may have 
been advanced by Deists to something like a theory 
of religious belief, it is at best a mere theory; utterly 
powerless in practice, except to liberate its disciples 
from all conscientious restraint upon their passions, 
and promote in the public mind the wildest licen- 
tiousness as to all moral obligation. Substitute deism 
for Christianity, and none acquainted with the nature 
or history of man can help acknowledging that, as 
to all the beneficial influence of religion upon heart 
and life, in promoting either the moral purity of 
individuals, or the happiness of society, we shall have 
no religion at all. When have Deists ever main- 
tained a habit of private, family, or public worship ? 
Attempts have been made among them to keep up 
som-e mode of congregational service ; but total failure, 
in every instance, has proved how forced was the 
effort, and how little it would have been thought of, 
had it not been for the surrounding influence of 
Christianity. The first attempt was by a man in 
England, who styled himself the Priest of Nature. 
He. relapsed, from being a dissenting preacher in 



LECTURE I. 



England, of an orthodox creed, to socinianism, 
thence to deism ; after which he set up in London 
a house of worship, formed a liturgy, was patronised 
by some persons of influence, preached, and collected 
some disciples. But most of his people became 
atheists; and after an experiment of four years, 
the congregation was reduced to nothing, funds 
failed, and the effort was abandoned. The most 
formidable enterprise in this way took place in 
France during the revolution. Having found by 
some experience, that to acknowledge no God was 
to have no law ; and to be without religious institu- 
tions was to want civilization and peace; certain 
persons distinguished for learning, and calling them- 
selves Theophilanthropists, set up a society for the 
worship of God on the principles of deism. The 
desolated churches of Paris were given for their 
object. A directory of deistical worship was pub- 
lished, containing prayers and hymns. Lectures 
were substituted for sermons. The ceremonies were 
simple, tasteful, and classical. Music added its 
charms. The form of worship was sent into all 
parts of the country, and great exertions were made 
by the powers of the state, to get up this religion in 
every town. Circumstances were exceedingly pro- 
pitious to the enterprise. Christianity had been 
banished. Her witnesses were in sackcloth. She 
had none to oppose themselves to the scheme of her 
enemies. The country was sick of the horrors of 
atheism. Some religion was demanded by public 
feeling. This contrivance had nothing in it offen- 
sive to the sinner, while it seemed to be skilfully 
adapted to the people and the times. Moreover, it 
was patronised by government, and conformed to by 
the learned. The ceremonies were well performed — 
the musical accompaniments excellent. 5ut all 
would not do. No sooner had novelty ceased, 
than the assemblies were thinned. The trifling 



8 LECTURE I* 

expenses of music and apparatus conlcl not be 
raised out of the liberality of the people. The 
society was split up with dissensions, some refusing 
the manual of worship ; others complaining against 
the lecturers as aiming at too much power ; others 
demanding that the creed of the society should be 
more liberal, and allow a greater latitude of belief. 
None at last could be got to lecture. To keep up 
the popular interest, and to escape the charge of 
bigotry, religious festivals were appointed, in which 
a union of service was attempted to be formed 
between Jews, Protestants, Catholics, Deists, and 
Atheists. There were festivals in honour of So- 
crates, of Rousseau, and of Washington. At one 
of these, a banner, inscribed with the name Morality y 
was carried by a man notorious as a professor of 
atheism. But all would not do. The great princi- 
ple of religion was wanting. There was no devo- 
tional spirit. The body was dead, and therefore 
soon tumbled to dust. A short time after, a coun- 
sellor of France, in a public address, declared the 
result of the experiment in these words : ** For want 
of a religious education, for the last ten years, our 
children are without any ideas of a Divinity, with- 
out any notion of what is just and unjust ; hence 
arise barbarous manners, hence a people become 
ferocious. Alas ! what have we gained by deviating 
from the path pointed out by our ancestors ? What 
have we gained by substituting vain and abstract 
doctrines for the creed which actuated the minds of 
Turenne, Fenelon, and Pascal ?"* I cannot omit, 
in connection with these striking confessions, the 
description given by one of the most famous infidels 
in those times, of all that class of philosophers whose 
views and schemes we have been noticing. Thus 
writes Rousseau : " I have consulted our philoso- 

* For more particulars, see Alexander's Evidences— 
Dwight's Sermons, i. 191. 



LECTURE I. ^ 

phers, I have perused their books, I have examined 
their several opinions, I have found them all proud, 
positive, and dogmatizing, even in their pretended 
scepticism; knowing every thing, provmg nothmg, 
and ridiculing one another; and this is the only 
point in which they concur, and in which they are 
right. If you count their number, each one is 
reduced to himself; they never unite but to dispute. 
I conceived that the insufficiency of the human 
understanding was the first cause of this prodigious 
diversity of sentiment, and that pride was the 
second. If our philosophers were able to discover 
truth, which of them would interest himself about 
it? Where is the philosopher who, for his own 
glory, would not willingly deceive the whole human 
race ? Where is he who, in the secret of his heart, 
proposes any other object than his own distinction ? 
The gfeat thing for him is, to think differently from 
other people. Under pretence of being themselves 
the only people enlightened, they imperiously sub- 
ject us to their magisterial decisions, and would fain 
palm upon us, for the true causes of things, the 
unintelligible systems they have erected in their 
own heads. Whilst they overturn, destroy, and 
trample under foot, all that mankind reveres ; snatch 
from the afflicted the only comfort left them m 
their misery ; from the rich and great the only curb 
that can restrain their passions ; tear from the heart 
all remorse of vice, all hopes of virtue ; and still 
boast themselves the benefactors of mankind. 
* Truth,' they say, * is never hurtful to man. I 
believe that, as well as they ; and the same, in my 
opinion, is a proof that what they teach is not the 
truth."* Such are the singular expressions of a 
noted infidel, into whose mind the truth sometimes 
forced an entrance, in spite of all his levity of mind, 

* Gandolphy's Defence of the Ancient Faith : quoted in 
Gregory *s Letters, ii, pp. 6 and 7. 



10 LECTURE I. 

and profligacy of life. They are the confessions of 
one of the chief actors in the farce of natural reli- 
gion, and by leading us behind the scenes, display 
in a most impressive light, that if deism be the only 
substitute of Christianity, we must have no religion, 
or that of Jesus. So that, in examining the evi- 
dences of Christianity, we should solemnly feel that 
the question before us is of no less magnitude than 
whether life and immortality have been brought to 
light by the gospel, or they are still involved in 
deep and confounding darkness ; whether religion 
is revealed in the Bible, or every thing on earth 
under the name of religion is false and impotent. 
Now, when it is considered what desolation would 
sweep at once over all the interests of society, were 
the restraint of religion withdrawn from the flood- 
gates of human corruption ; what immense benefits 
have ensued, and must ensue, even by the confes- 
sion of some of its most violent opposers, from the 
diffusion of the gospel ; what happy effects upon 
the character and present happiness of its genuine 
disciples it has always produced ; reforming their 
lives, purifying their hearts, elevating their affec- 
tions, healing the wounds of the guilty, taking 
away the sting of death, and lighting even the 
sepulchre with a hope full of glory ; when it is con- 
sidered what high claims the gospel asserts to an 
unlimited sovereignty over all our affections and 
faculties, requiring our entire submission, promising 
to every devout believer eternal life, and to all that 
refuse its claims everlasting woe : it must at once 
be evident, that the subject before us is no matter of 
mere intellectual interest, but one in which every 
expectant of eternity has an immeasurable stake. 
No mind has any right to indifference here. With- 
out the most wonderful folly, no mind can be indif- 
ferent here. Whether the claims of the gospel are 
the claims of God, is a question to which in point of 



LECTURE I. 



II 



importance no other can pretend a comparison, 
except this one — Believing in those claims, am I 
surrendered to their governance ? ^^ 

But I speak to a great many who have no dif- 
ficulty on this head, being fully satisfied that the 
gospel of Christ is a divine revelation. "What con- 
cern have they with the investigation before us? 
*' Much every way." The question for them to ask, 
is, On what grounds are we satisfied 'i Are we be- 
lievers in Christianity because we were born of be- 
lieving 'parents, and have always lived in a christian 
country ; or, because we have considered the excellence 
and weighed the proofs of this religion, and are in- 
telligently persuaded that it deserves our reliance ? 
I am well aware that there are many truly devoted 
followers of Christ, who have never made the evi- 
dences of Christianity their study, and, in argument 
with an infidel, would be easily confounded by su- 
perior skill and information ; but whose belief ne- 
vertheless is, in the highest degree, that of rational 
conviction, since they possess in themselves the best 
of all evidence that the gospel of Christ is '' the 
power and wisdom of God,'' having experienced 
its transforming, purifying, elevating, and enlight- 
enino- efficacy upon their own hearts and charac- 
ters.^ Did such believers abound, ^Christianity 
would be much less in need of other evidence. 
Were all that call themselves Christians thus ex- 
perimentally convinced of the preciousness of the 
gospel, I would still urge upon them the duty and 
advantage of studying as far as possible the various 
arguments which illustrate the divinity of its ori- 
gin. I would urge it on considerations of personal 
pleasure and spiritual improvement. There is a 
rich feast of knowledge and of devout contempla- 
tion to be found in this study. The serious be- 
liever, who has not pursued it, has yet to learn 
with what wonderful and impressive light the God 



1^ LECTURE r. 

of the gospel has manifested its truth. Its evi- 
dences are not only convincing, but dehghtfully 
plain ; astonishingly accumulated, and of immense 
variety, as well as strength. He who will take the 
pams not only to pursue the single line of argu- 
ment which may seem enough to satisfy his own 
mind ; but devoutly to follow up, in succession, all 
those great avenues which lead to the gospel as 
the central fountain of truth, will be presented, at 
every step, with such evident marks of the finger 
of God ; he will hear from every quarter such 
reiterated assurances of, ** this is the way ; vjalk 
thou in itr he will find himself so enclosed on every 
hand by insurmountable evidences shutting him 
up unto the faith of Christ, that new views will 
open upon him of the real cause and guilt and 
danger of all unbelief; new emotions of gratitude 
and admiration will arise in his heart for a revela- 
tion so divinely attested ; his zeal will receive 
a new impulse to follow and promote such hea- 
venly light. 

But I would urge this study on all serious be- 
lievers, who have the means of pursuing it, as a 
matter of duty. It is not enough that they are well 
satisfied. They have a cause to defend and pro- 
mote, as w^ll as a faith to love and enjoy. It is en- 
joined on them, by the authority of their Divine 
Master, that they be ready to give to every man 
that asketh them, a reason of the hope that is in 
them. They must be able to answer intelligently 
the question. Why do you believe in Christianity ? 
For this purpose, it is not enough to be able to 
speak of a sense of the truth, arising from an in- 
ward experience of its power and blessedness. 
This is excellent evidence for one's own mind; 
but it cannot be felt or understood by an unbe- 
liever. The christian advocate must have a know- 
ledge of the arguments by which infidelity may be 



LECTURE I 13 

confounded ; as well as an experience of the benefits 
for which the gospel should be loved. To obtain 
this in proportion to his abilities, he is bound by 
the all-important consideration that the religion of 
Jesus cannot be content while one soul remains in 
the rejection of her light and life. She seeks not 
only to be maintained, but to bring all mankind to 
her blessings. The benevolence of a christian should 
stimulate him to be well armed for the controversy 
with unbelievers. Benevolence, while it should 
constrain the infidel most carefully to conceal his 
opinions lest others be so unhappy as to feel their 
ague and catch their blight, should invigorate the 
believer with the liveliest zeal to bring over his 
fellow-creatures to the adoption of a faith so glo- 
rious in its hopes and so ennobling in its influence. 
Even on the supposition that Christianity were false, 
unspeakably better should we think it to be deluded 
by consolations which, though groundless, would be 
still so precious ; than enlightened by an infidelity 
which shrouds its disciples in such darkness, and 
drowns them in such confusion. 

But if such are the weighty considerations which 
should induce an experienced christian to study 
the evidences of Christianity, while he carries in his 
own breast the strongest of all assurances of its 
having the witness of the Spirit of God, how much 
more should this subject receive the attention of 
that numerous portion of the population of a 
christian land, who, while they are called chris- 
tians, have never experienced in their hearts the 
blessedness of the gospel. These are eminently 
dependent on this study for all rational and sted- 
fast belief. Beinsr destitute of the anchor obtained 
by an inward sense of the divine excellence of 
the truth as it is in Jesus, they must spread their 
sails to the influence of external evidence, or be 
liable to be tossed about with eve^ry wind of doctrine, 



14 LECTURE I. 

and wrecked against the cliffs of infidelity. It is a 
matter of great importance, that the attention of this 
class should be much more extensively obtained to 
the proofs of the religion in which they profess to 
believe. Multitudes of men, well informed on other 
subjects, are believers, for hardly any other reason 
than because their parents were so, and the fashion 
of society is on this side. The same considerations 
that make them Christians in this land, would have 
made them enemies of Christianity in others : Pagans 
in India, Mohammedans in Turkey. They can give 
a better reason for every other opinion they profess, 
than for their acknowledgment of the gospel of 
Christ. The efforts of infidels, combining ingenious 
sophistry with high pretensions to learning, and 
coming into alliance with strong dispositions of 
human nature, have an open field, and must be 
expected to do a fearful work among minds thus 
undisciplined and unarmed. It is only in the 
lowest possible sense of the word that they can 
receive the name of believers. Instead of adding 
strength to the cause of Christianity by their 
numbers, they rather embarrass it by their ignorance 
of its weapons, and bring it into disrepute by the 
ease with which they are entrapped in the snares of 
the enemy. They have no conception what a truth 
that is which they so carelessly acknowledge ; hoiv 
impressively it is true ; with what awful authority it 
is invested ; what a wonder is involved in professing 
to believe, and refusing to obey it. Do I speak to 
any who are thus situated ? I would earnestly 
exhort them, for their own satisfaction and stedfast- 
ness as believers in revelation, for the purpose of 
realizing how solemnly the living God has called 
them to submit, as well as assent, to the gospel of 
Christ, and for the honour of a religion which so 
abounds in the best of reasons, to make a serious 
study of the evidences of Christianity. 



JLECTURE I. 15 

- To any whose minds are not settled with regard 
to this momentous question, or who consider them- 
selves as having arrived at a definite opinion against 
the divine authority of the gospel, need I say a word 
to show why they, of all others, should give the sub- 
ject in view their most serious and diligent attention? 
Suppose they should become fixed in the rejection 
of Christianity, and, to the influence of their example 
on the side of infidelity, should add the effort of 
argument, tending to weaken the faith of others, and 
to increase the number of enemies to Christ ; and, 
finally, should be convinced on the verge of the 
grave, (as many of this mind have been most pain- 
fully convinced,) or in eternity, should have it dis- 
covered to them that what they have been setting at 
nought was no less than God's own revelation, the 
gospel of him who cometh to judge the quick and 
dead ; and that what they had embraced, and led 
others to embrace, in its stead, was only a miserable 
oflTspring of human pride and folly, a spirit of delu- 
sion and eternal destruction ; what then would seem 
the importance of a serious application of mind and 
heart to this study ; the madness of treating it with 
indifference, or pursuing it without the strictest 
impartiality? That such a discovery is at least as 
likely as the contrary, even infidels, in their conti- 
nual declarations that all beyond the grave is un- 
known, have given impressive confessions. That it 
is at least exceedingly probable, independently of 
positive evidence, the unbeliever cannot but fear, 
when he surveys the history of the world, and sees 
what minds and what hearts, what men of learning 
and of holiness, have been ready to suffer any earthly 
loss or pain, rather than be unassociated with the 
eternal blessedness of the discipleship of Christ. 

I have now exhibited something of the incompara- 
ble importance of the question before us, as consi- 
dered by itself. There is an additional importance 



16 LECTURE I. 

ill its present investigation, arising out of the peculiar 
character of the present times. 

We rejoice with others in the belief that thip age, 
in comparison with all before it, merits distinction as 
an age of freedom. We rejoice that it is an age of 
freedom, as well in the investigation of all truth, as 
in the assertion of all political rights. But what is 
called the spirit of freedom, is not everywhere iden- 
tical with the cause of truth and right. In one 
region, it is the calm, deliberate determination to be 
governed only by just and equal laws; in another, 
it is the furious, desolating despiser of all laws but 
those of one's own passion and selfishness. This is 
seen, as well in the discussion of religious truth, as 
in the vindication of assumed principles of civil 
liberty. There are certain just and necessary laws 
to govern us in reasoning, as much as in acting; to 
regulate the investigation of moral and religious, as 
well as physical and political subjects. True liberty 
of mind consists in the right of being governed by 
these laws, and no other; and at the same time 
asserts their absolute necessity. But there is a spirit 
abroad, which, under the name of freedom of opinion, 
would set at defiance all the fundamental laws of 
reasoning, and denounce, as the offspring of intel- 
lectual despotism, whatever principles of moral evi- 
dence are at variance with itself. This is licentious- 
ness, not freedom. It is the enemy of law, not of 
oppression ; the very menial of mental degradation, 
instead of what it boasts itself, the promoter of 
manly, elevated, independent intellect. This spirit 
of evil is greatly on the increase, because the name 
and boast of freedom are circulating far more rapidly 
in this world than the knowledge of its character or 
the possession of its blessings ; because it is so much 
easier for the mass of society to burst at once the 
whole body of law by which mind is restrained, than 
to separate between the precious and the vile ; and 



LECTURE I. 17 

chiefly because with the many, there is too little reflec- 
tion and too little moral principle, when religion is 
in question, to appreciate the important difference 
between the oppression of opinion in matters of rea- 
son, and the just government of reason in matters of 
opinion. Nothing, in truth, has so promoted the 
freedom of thought, of opinion, and of action, as 
Christianity. If any thing under her name has been 
guilty of the opposite, it has been, so far forth, the 
corruption of her character and the denial of her 
principles. Pure Christianity has ever proclaimed 
liberty to the captive, as well in mental as in physi- 
cal slavery. The ages of the purest freedom have 
been those of her greatest advancement. She courts 
investigation when it is free; but rejects it when 
licentious. She is the patroness of law, and will be 
judged only by law. Bring her trial to the judg- 
ment-seat of that inductive philosophy which one of 
her own children first illustrated, and which, on other 
subjects, the world has learned to use so well and 
prize so highly : let her be judged by the evidence 
of fact, and she is satisfied. But this reasonable 
privilege it is more than ever the spirit of self-con- 
stituted philosophers, in their loud declamation 
against the slavery of opinion, and their licentious 
rebellion against all the laws of reasoning, to refuse. 
Hence the greater importance that our present 
subject, in all its departments, from the most funda- 
mental principles of evidence, to the highest point of 
inductive argument, should be thoroughly studied by 
all whose interest it is to know, and whose duty it is 
to vindicate, the truth. 

But there is one more consideration, in connec- 
tion with the present age, illustrating the peculiar 
importance of the study you are now commencing. 
The evidences of Christianity, while specially as- 
sailed, in these times, with a licentiousness and ef- 
frontery which the dignity of no truth can coun- 

c 



18 LECTURE I. 

tenance, and the chastity of religious truth should 
never meet, are favoured, at the same time, with 
advantages for convincing illustration such as no 
preceding age ever furnished. Time, while it has 
impaired the strength of none of our ancient argu- 
ments, has greatly increased the weight of some, 
and has added, and is daily adding, new auxiliaries 
to a body of proof which its enemies have never 
ventured to attack in front. Every new year, in the 
age and trials of our holy faith, is an additional 
evidence that, likie the pyramids of Memphis, it was 
made to endure. It wears well. Christianity has 
been journeying, for the last eighteen hundred 
years, through unceasing trials. While as yet an 
infant in a land of almost Egyptian darkness, a 
Jewish Pharaoh attempted to strangle her in the 
cradle. She grew up in contempt and poverty, 
and began her course, like Israel of old, through a 
Red Sea of relentless persecution. Bitter waters 
awaited her subsequent progress. Amalek with all 
the principalities and powers of earth, during more 
than three centuries, opposed her march. Fiery 
serpents in the wilderness of Sin have ever been 
stinging at her feet. The world has opened no 
fountain, nor vouchsafed any bread, to sustain her. 
What alliances the nations have ever made with her 
cause have only given them the greater power to 
encumber and divide her strength. Her drink has 
been drawn from the rock ; her bread has been 
gathered in the desert. Nothing that malice, or 
learning, or power, or perseverance, could do to 
arrest her goings, has been wanting. Even trea- 
chery in her own household has often endeavoured 
to betray her into the hands of the enemy. No 
age has encountered her advance with such a dan- 
gerous variety of force; or with a more boastful 
confidence of success, than the present. And yet 
in none, since that of the primitive christians, has 



LECTURE I. 19 

her triumph been so glorious, or her conquest so 
extensive. At a time of life when, considering her 
fiery trials, one ignorant of her nature would ex- 
pect to see her wrinkled with age and crippled with 
manifold infirmities, it may be said of her, with 
perfect truth, that though for more than eighteen 
hundred years she has been journeying through con- 
flicts and trials innumerable, her eye is not dim, nor 
her natural force abated. She remains unchanged 
by time, the same precisely as when first proclaimed 
in the streets of Jerusalem. The shield of faith, the 
breastplate of righteousness, the helmet of salva- 
tion, the sword of the Spirit, are neither broken nor 
decayed, but as ready as in the beginning, to go 
forth ** conquering and to conquer/' This long and 
hard experiment proves that she is made for eter- 
nity. It is the privilege of our age to appreciate 
the evidence of this with more satisfaction than any 
preceding it. But how different, this sublime im- 
mutability of Christianity, so much like the eternity 
of God, from the childish fickleness of infidelity! 
What is the history of infidelity, but a history of 
changes? Where is the resemblance between the 
writings of its modern and those of its ancient dis- 
ciples ? What Celsus and Porphyry attempted to 
maintain against primitive Christianity, none at pre- 
sent would think of advocating ; while the positions 
and reasonings of recent infidels would have been 
subjects of ridicule among their earliest brethren. 
** The doctrines which Herbert and Tindal declared 
to be so evident that God could not make them 
more evident, were wholly given up as untenable by 
Hume ; and the scepticism of Hume sustained no 
higher character in the mind of D*Alembert. Mere 
infidelity gave up natural religion, and atheism 
mere infidelity. Atheism is the system at present 
in vogue. What will succeed it, cannot be fore- 
seen. One consolation, however, attends the sub- 



2Q LECTURE I. 

ject, and that is— no other system can be so 
groundless, so despicable, or so completely ruinous 
to the iliorals and happiness of mankind."* 

But there is another aspect in which the study 
of the evidences of Christianity is presented as es- 
pecially interesting, in connection with the present 
age. T'his is an age peculiarly distinguished for 
scientijic research and discovery. Never did sci- 
ence travel so widely, explore so deeply, analyze so 
minutely, compare so critically the present v»^ith the 
past, principles with facts; histories of ancient 
times, with monuments of ancient things; truths 
of revealed religion, with results of experimental 
philosophy. And what is the consequence ? Has 
the Pentateuch suffered by him who found the key, 
and applied it to the hieroglyphical memorials on 
the marbles and porphyries of Egypt? Did the 
geological researches of the lamented Cuvier en- 
feeble his belief in the Mosaic history ?t 

I venture to say, there never was an age in which 
it could be asserted, with so much practical witness, 
that science, and every extension of human know- 
ledge, are strengthening and multiplying the evi- 
dences of Christianity. Add to this, the ever accu- 
mulating force of the argument from prophecy, a 
source of evidence in which we exceed by far the 
primitive times of the gospel, and which must be 
increasing as long as one prediction of the Bible 
remains to be fulfilled. Then, consider what new 
exhibitions the present age of signal enterprise, in 
all things, has furnished, and is daily presenting, of 

* Dwiglit on Infidel Philosophy. 

t It is an interesting fact, well worthy of being recorded, 
that Cuvier, whose death has been recently announced, was 
to have presided at the next annual meeting of the Bible 
Society of Paris ; and had proposed, as the topic of his 
address, the agreement betiveen the Mosaic history and the 
modern discoveries in geology. 



LECTURE I. 21 

the power attendant upon the gospel to overcome 
every obstacle, and make the moral desert a garden^ 
and savages meek and lowly of heart. Look at the 
missionary stations of the Pacific and of Hindoostan, 
and among our own frontier tribes. There it will 
be seen that Christianity has still her apostles, her 
martyrs, her conquests. The idol cast to the 
ground ; the idol temple purged of its pollutions, 
and consecrated to Jehovah ; the multitude, once 
naked devotees of demons, now clothed and in their 
right mind, and sitting at the feet of Jesus ; these 
are some of our additional testimonies to the gos- 
pel, that her arm is not shortened that it cannot 
save. But they are not all. Every new traveller 
into regions hitherto but little known, as he deve- 
lops the condition of nations destitute of the gos- . 
pel, increases our evidence of the utter helplessness 
of human reason, and the total prostration of human 
nature, without the light which we enjoy, and, con- 
sequently, our evidence of the universal need of a 
revelation like ours, as well as of the benefits which 
have followed in the train of Christianity wherever 
she has been received. And last, but not least, 
our experience of the tender mercies of infidelity 
is more impressive than that of preceding ages. Its 
nature, spirit, personal and public consequences, 
have now had time to speak out, and make a full 
display of their benefits to all classes of mankind. 
Our times have seen enough ; any of us have heard 
enough to form some adequate idea of what society 
would be favoured with, in personal consolations, 
in domestic peace and purity, in public security 
and order, should the principles of infidelity be 
generally adopted as the basis of individual, family, 
and national government. 

I have now endeavoured to illustrate the import- 
ance of a diligent attention to the great subject 
we have undertaken to treat, by considerations 



22 LECTURE I. 

arising out of its own intrinsic nature, anil from its 
special aspect as associated with the distinctive 
character of the present age. I will occupy but a 
little while longer in speaking of, 

11. The importance of strict attention to the 
spirit in which we should examine the evidences of 
Christianity , 

** Blessed (said the Saviour) is he whosoever shall 
not be offended in me." There is a great deal in 
the religion of Jesus, at which the natural disposi- 
tions of man are offended. He is proud— the gos- 
pel demands humility; revengeful — the gospel 
demands forgiveness. Man is prone to set his 
affections on things on the earth; the gospel re-, 
quires him to set them on those which are above. 
He is wedded to self-indulgence, glories in being 
his own master, idolizes himself, encourages self- 
dependence, boasts his own goodness, lives without 
God in the world. All this the gospel peremptorily 
condemns; requires him to repent of it, to deny 
himself, renounce all right over himself, give up his 
will to that of God, live for the Lord Jesus, and 
lean upon and glory in him alone as all his strength, 
hope, and righteousness. Hence it is evident that 
the natural heart and the precepts of Christianity 
are directly at variance. **The mystery of an in- 
carnate and crucified Saviour must necessarily con- 
found the reason, and shock the prejudices, of a 
mind which will admit nothing that it cannot per- 
fectly reduce to the principles of philosophy. The 
whole tenor of the life of Christ, the objects he 
pursued, and the profound humiliation he exhibited, 
must convict of madness and folly the favourite 
pursuits of mankind. The virtues usually practised 
in society, and the models of excellence most ad- 
mired there, are so remote from that holiness which 
is enjoined in the New Testament, that it is impos- 
sible for a taste which is formed on the one to per- 



LECTURE I. 23 

ceive the charms of the other. Tlie happiness which 
it proposes in an union with God, and a participa- 
tion of the image of Christ, is so far from being 
congenial to the inclinations of worldly men, that it 
can scarcely be mentioned without exciting their 
ridicule and scorn. General speculations on the 
Deity have much to amuse the mind, and to gratify 
that appetite for the wonderful, which thoughtful 
and speculative men are delighted to indulge. 
Religion viewed in this light appears more in the 
form of an exercise to the understanding, than a 
law to the heart. Here the soul expatiates at large, 
without feeling itself controlled or alarmed. But 
when evangelical truths are presented, they bring 
God so near, if we may be allowed the expression, 
and speak with so commanding a voice to the con- 
science, that they leave no alternative, but that of 
submissive acquiescence or proud revolt.*'* 

Hence the question as to the truth of Christianity 
is peculiar. You can investigate the truth of a nar- 
rative in common history, or of a phenomenon in 
physical science, or of a principle of political econo- 
my, with the coolness of a mere intellectual exer- 
cise. One sets out in such pursuits with no feelings 
already enlisted. Had this been the case with 
regard to the divine origin of Christianity, *' a tenth 
part of the testimony which has actually been given 
would have been enough to satisfy us ; the testi- 
mony, both in weight and quantity, would have 
been looked upon as quite unexampled in the whole 
compass of ancient literature.**t But here the 
question is one of feeling, as well as of evidence ; 
enlisting the heart, as well as the head. Powerful 
dispositions crowd around the investigation. Hence 
one is in danger, unless his natural inclinations be 
subdued, of looking at the argument through a 
medium which, while it diminishes the importance 
* Robert Hall. t Chalmers. 



24 LECTURE I. 

of the evidence, will magnify the objections. This 
explains sufficiently how it has happened that there 
have been men of learning, and talents, and much 
practical wisdom, in many departments, who have 
become, and continued unbelievers. Their disposi- 
tions were stronger than their talents, and moulded 
the latter to their own service, instead of yielding to 
tlieir guidance. The examination was conducted 
rather by the test of inclination, than of evidence. 
Now, it is no part of the profession of Christianity to 
furnish eyes to those who will not see. Evidence 
that will force its way irresistibly through prejudice 
and unwillingness, compelling submission, she does 
not promise. Enough to satisfy, abundantly, every 
candid, serious, diligent, humble inquirer, she does 
profess to give. If she ever exhibit more, it is beyond 
her stipulation, and more than any have reason to 
demand. 

The pride of human reason is often deeply 
offended at the claims of Christianity. The gospel 
demands to be received as a revelation of truth, 
communicated by authority, so that a wise man shall 
have no room to ascribe his knowledge of God, and 
of His will, to his own powers of discovery ; but has 
to sit, just where the ignorant and lowly must sit, 
at the feet of Jesus, This pleases not the specula- 
tive and ambitious turn of the human intellect. Men 
like to find out truth by reasonings of their own, 
instead of the authoritative declarations of another, 
even though that other be infallible Wisdom. They 
love to theorize, and conjecture, and try the ingenu- 
ity of their own faculties, so as to praise themselves 
for whatever is ascertained. Hence, in matters of 
science, there was a long and hard struggle before 
they could be brought down from the yjroud flights 
of speculation, and consent to the self-denial of the 
inductive method, submitting to be instructed only 
by the revelations of experiment, and in the unpre- 



LECTURE I. 25 

tending school of fact. To adopt the same method 
in matters of religious investigation, many are not 
yet willing. To give up all speculation, philosophy, 
** falsely so called," and consent to receive, instead 
of being ambitious to discover, religious truth ; to 
receive Tt at a source where the humblest and the 
loftiest mind must drink together out of the same 
cup ; to receive it on the simple testimony of a well- 
attested revelation, which lies as open to the peasant 
as the philosopher': to this the wise men of the world 
are slow of heart to consent. Their pride of rea- 
son is offended. Did arv account come to them 
from the other continent of certain novel and inte- 
resting phenomena recently observed in the heavens, 
they would see at once how unphilosophical it would 
be to commence theorizing upon the question of 
their truth, and then reject them because inconsist- 
ent with certain previous speculations of their own. 
They would institute but the one inquiry, Is there 
reason to depend upon the accuracy of the observa- 
tions, and the honesty of the reports of those from 
whom these statements proceed ? Satisfied on this 
head, they would at once receive the phenomena, 
and every truth resulting therefrom, on the great 
principle of modern science, that whatever is thus 
collected by induction must be received, notwith- 
standing any conjectural hypothesis to the contrary, 
.until contradicted or limited by other phenomena 
eqxially authenticated. Now, we only ask them, 
not to disown the philosophy of Newton in exam- 
ining the evidence of the religion of Christ ; to^^try 
the celestial wonders, the *' mecanique celeste,'' as 
given by Christ and his apostles, not by theory or 
speculation, but precisely as they would try any 
other, in the open field of fact and induction. We 
do not ask them to believe, unless upon the credit 
of facts. But we do ask, that whatever is thus 
proved, they will receive, notwithstanding any con- 



26 LECTURE I. 

jectural hypothesis to the contrary. The whole 
argument for Christianity, so far from being in any 
degree theoretical or speculative, is eminently one of 
experimental evidence and inductive simplicity. We 
take the position that our Lord Jesus Christ pro- 
fessed to make a revelation from God. It is con- 
ceded, that if he attested his communications by 
miracles, he sealed that profession as true. We say 
he did thus attest them. But miracles are facts — 
phenomena — to be proved by the testimony of eye- 
witnesses, like any phenomena in physics. To such 
testimony we appeal. We ask the unbeliever to 
refute it; and, if he cannot, to receive the revelation, 
and bow to its declarations as the attested word of 
God. But here, unfortunately, we set the rule of 
sound philosophy against the dispositions of an un- 
humbled heart. The latter has the victory, often ; 
and the wise man goes to work to oppose our facts 
with his theories, our testimony with his specula- 
tions, till he flatters himself, because he has covered 
up his eyes in his own mazes, that he has refuted the 
evidences of Christianity. Hence, therefore, another 
cause that learned men are not all believers in 
Christianity. They are not all humble enough, in a 
question with which heart and life are so much con- 
nected, to abide by the results to which the princi- 
ples of philosophical investigation would naturally 
lead them. But hence, also, a most important reason, 
that whoever of you may have doubts as to the 
gospel of Christ, should, in the pursuit on which we 
have entered, be cautious, candid, ready to learn, 
and determined to embrace the truth wherever it 
shall be found. 

One consideration more. It is true of Christianity, 
as of many other excellent subjects, th at oty'ec^'o/is are 
more easily invented than answered. Objections in 
such matters are usually light affairs, floating on the 
surface of men*s thoughts. Answers, to be solid, 



LECTURE r. 



27 



must be heavier and lie deeper, requiring, like the 
pearl, both labour and skill to bring them up, and 
fashion them for use. But Christianity is peculiarly 
exposed to objections; from the simple fact that, as 
it meets every body, and compels every body to say 
yea or nay to its requirements, every body must 
needs have something to say, however unreasonable, 
in its favour or against it. Few indeed would ven- 
ture to give an opinion, without some study, on a 
question in science or polite literature ; but the most 
ignorant and unthinking will undertake an opinion 
upon the merits of the gospel, and raise an objection 
in a breath, which would require much patience and 
some learning to refute. Hundreds hear the objec- 
tion; thousands relish, retain, and are poisoned by 
it; while, perhaps, not one of them has the disposi- 
tion to hear, or patience enough to understand, the 
reply. Evil hearts can do what only good and well- 
instructed minds can undo. '' Pertness and igno- 
rance may ask a question, in three lines, which it 
will cost learning and ingenuity thirty pages to an- 
swer. When this is done, the same question will be 
triumphantly asked again the next year, as if nothing 
had ever been written on the subject. And as peo- 
ple, in general, for one reason or another, like short 
objections better than long answers ; in this mode of 
disputation (if it can be styled such) the odds must 
ever be against us; and we must be content with 
those for our friends, who have honesty and erudi- 
tion, candour and patience, to study both sides of 
the question."* 

These observations explain the lamentable fact, 
that, in a large portion of society, there is so much 
more acquaintance with the cant and slang of infi- 
delity, than with the reasonings in support of Chris- 
tianity ; that our young men are often so familiar with 
the boasting and floating calumnies which the trou- 
* Home's Letters on Infidelity. 



28 LECTURE "I. 

bled sea of infidelity is ever casting up, with its mire 
and dirt, in the face of the gospel ; while, with the 
innumerable efforts bv which christian science has 
scattered all such poisonous exhalations to the winds, 
many have not the most trifling acquaintance. 

All these considerations are at least sufficient to 
impress us with the eminent importance of the most 
serious attention to the spirit and manner in which 
one proceeds in the study of the evidences of Chris- 
tianity. • 

Let me urgently recommend docility, in this pur- 
suit. By this, I mean nothing resembling credulity ; 
but an open-hearted and humble-minded readiness 
to weigh evidence with simplicity of purpose in the 
most even scales of truth ; and then to submit to, 
and follow the truth, wherever it may lead, with 
singleness of heart, in the fear of God. 

Let me also recommend a deep seriousness of pur- 
pose, in this pursuit. I mean that calm and settled 
earnestness of mind, which a just sense of the un- 
speakable importance of the subject, and of the 
responsibility under which all, even the most indif- 
ferent, must treat it, will necessarily inspire. 

Lastly, prayer is by all means to be employed in 
this pursuit. It is written most wisely, '* If any 
man lack wisdom, let him ask of God." But do I 
forget that I am speaking from the chair of a lee- * 
ture room, instead of the pulpit of a church ? Prayer ! 
How do I know but that I am addressing many who 
are already on the side of infidelity? Would 1 say 
to them. Study the evidences of Christianity with 
prayer ? Is it not equivalent to begging the ques- 
tion ? Is it not asking them to do what, as pro- 
fessors of infidelity, they object to ? In one sense, 
I verily believe it is begging the question. A spirit 
of serious, earnest prayer, for the knowledge of truth, 
is utterly inconsistent with the spirit of infidelity. 
Who does not feel the singularity involved in the 



LECTURE II. 29 

idea of seeing a thorough infidel engaged in secret, 
earnest prayer to be preserved from all bias in 
search of truth, and to be led in the way in which 
God would have him to go ? And yet, if he be not 
an atheist, he can have nothing to say against the 
propriety of such a step. But is it true that infide- 
lity and the spirit of prayer are practically so incon- 
sistent ? Is it true that we have already accomplished 
at least half our work of conviction, when we have 
persuaded an unbeliever to make religious truth a 
subject of serious supplication at the throne of grace ? 
What does this say tor the gospel ? 

Any, who are very anxious to continue in unbelief, 
had better not pray. They might find out more than 
would be convenient, by such an effort. Infidelity 
cannot tolerate so much seriousness. But if any feel 
that they lack wisdom, in this great concern of eter- 
nity, and desire to know the way of light and life : 
*' let them ask of God, tvho giveth to all men libe- 
rally, and upbraideth not ; and it shall be given 
them.'* 



LECTURE II. 

AUTHENTICITY OF THE NEW TESTAMENT. 

Our last lecture was only introductory t6 the im- 
portant subject to which I have undertaken to lead 
your attention. In the present we enter directly 
upon one of its principal branches. 

The study of the evidences of Christianity may be 
either brief or extended, according to the object 
with which it is pursued. If it be merely the pos- 
session of some one distinct and conclusive train of 
reasoning, perfect in itself, the investigation may 
soon be ended. The student may take any single 
miracle or fulfilled prophecy ; he may choose his 
premises from the narrative of the resurrection of 



30 LECTURE II. 

Christ or the conversion of St. Paul, or the propa- 
gation of Christianity, and, confining his argument 
to the point selected, may deduce a finished proof 
of the divine authority of the gospel. But if he 
desire not only rational satisfaction for his own mind, 
but a full view of all those great highways of evi- 
dence which, from every quarter, concentrate upon 
Christianity ; if he would behold, not only that it is 
capable of conclusive proof, but how variously and 
wonderfully its Divine Author has encompassed it 
with proofs of every kind, drawn from innumerable 
sources, and prepared, at all points, for every ob- 
jection, he may lay himself out for a work of 
extensive research, as well as rich gratification and 
improvement. 

The evidences of Christianity are classed under 
two general denominations : external or historical, 
and internal evidence. Under the latter, are in- 
cluded whatever proof of divine original may be 
drawn from the doctrines of the gospel ; its incom- 
parable system of morality ; the adaptation of the 
religion of Christ to the condition and wants of 
mankind ; the holy and elevated character of its 
Founder ; together with all those incidental, but 
striking and various, marks of uprightness, accuracy, 
and benevolence, which appear in the spirit and 
manner of the New Testament writers, or from a 
comparison of their several books one with another. 
Such are the principal heads of internal evidence. 
Under the name of exteriial or historical evidence, 
we find whatever exhibits the need of a revelation, 
as apparent in the state of human opinion and 
practice among the most enlightened nations at 
the commencement of the gospel ; the argument 
establishing the authenticity of the scriptures, and 
the credibility of the history contained therein ; the 
proofs arising from mirac^les ; from fulfilled pro- 
phecy ; from the propagation of Christianity, and 



LECTURE ir. 31 

from the social and personal benefits which have 
always accompanied its promotion, according to the 
degree in which its native character and influence 
have had room to appear. Such are the principal 
heads of external evidence. 

The present course of lectures, for want of time 
to carry it further, will be confined to the depart- 
ment last described, w^hich is chosen in preference 
to the other, not because it is more important or 
conclusive, but as more capable of having justice 
done it, in a series of discussions such as that to 
which the circumstances of these lectures restrict us. 

Should we embrace in our view of this grand 
division of evidence whatever belongs to it, your 
attention would first be called to the indispensable 
necessity of a divine revelation, as the history of 
the ancient world displays it, and as it is still ex- 
hibited in the dark places of the earth. This, how- 
ever, we have not room to include in our course. 
Though extremely impressive, and worthy of inves- 
tigation, it is not an essential argument. The 
straight- forward method of philosophical inquiry 
directs its attention to the testimony simply that an 
event did occur, and will not suspend assent till the 
need of such an event shall have been fully ex- 
plained. If convincing evidence be adduced to the 
matter of fact, that a revelation has been given ; we 
may be reasonably content, while our limits forbid 
the proof, that it luas needed. Whoever should de- 
sire to read on this head will find it well discussed 
in the first volume of Wilsons Lectures on the 
Evidences, <^^c., or in the admirable letters on the 
same subject, by Olinthus Gregory, L,L.D, Pro- 
fessor of Mathematics in the Royal Military Aca- 
demy at Woolwich, one of the most scientific and 
pious laymen of the age ; or, more at large, in the 
learned volume of Leland, on the Advantages and 
Necessity of a Divine Revelation, 



32 LECTURE II. 

Let us begin with the authenticity of the New 
Testament, We possess a venerable volume, under 
this title, consisting of twenty-seven independent 
books or writings, reputed to have been composed 
by eight different authors. It professes to contain, 
and is continually appealed to as containing, not 
only an accurate account of the history and doc- 
trine of Jesus Christ, but an account written in the 
first age of Christianity, by its earliest disciples and 
advocates, who were contemporaneous with its au- 
thor, and were, most of them, eye-witnesses of the 
events related. Now, before we can be reasonably 
warranted in placing implicit reliance in the New 
Testament, as the hook of the facts and doctrines of 
the gospel, two important questions must be deter- 
mined. First : Is there satisfactory evidence that 
the several writings^ of which it is composed^ were 
written by the men to whom they are ascribed? 
This involves the authenticity of the Neav Tes- 
tament. Secondly : Is the New Testament de- 
serving of implicit reliance as to matters of his^ 
torical detail, so that we may receive any narrative, 
as unquestionably true, because contained therein? 
This refers to the credibility of the New Tes- 
tament. Thus, you perceive, that whether a volume 
be authentic, and whether credible, are two widely 
separate questions, neither necessarily implying the 
other, however the evidence of one may bear upon 
the proof of the other. Writings may be authentic, 
composed by the men whose names they bear, and 
yet not credible. They may be credible, because 
correct in their statements, and yet not authentic. 
The question of authenticity refers to the author ; 
that of credibility, to the narrative. '' The Pilgrim's 
Progress" is authentic, because it was actually com- 
posed by John Bunyan, to whom it is ascribed ; but 
as a narrative, it is not credible, being an allegory 
throughout. The book entitled *' Travels of Ana- 



LECTURE II. 33« 

charsis the Younger," is credible, so far as it professes 
to exhibit a view of the antiquities, manners, cus- 
toms, religious ceremonies, &c., of ancient Greece ; 
but it is not authentic, having been v^^ritten in the 
eighteenth century by Barthelemy, and fictitiously 
ascribed to the Scythian philosopher. ** Marshall's 
Life of Washington'' is both authentic and credible, 
being a true history, and worthily honoured with the 
name of that eminent and excellent man, from 
whose pen it professes to have come. That the 
New Testament is also authentic and credible, we 
undertake to shew. We exclude the more ancient 
portion of the sacred volume, not because of any 
deficiency in its evidence, but for the sake of unity 
and clearness in our inquiries ; and because, when 
the argument for the New Testament is set forth in 
a conclusive form, the authenticity and credibility 
of the other is rendered, as will hereafter appear, a 
necessary inference. The two questions will be the 
subjects of different lectures. To that of authen- 
ticity our attention will, this evening, be confined. 
Let us begin with the following : — 

How does it appear that the several writings 
composing the volume of the New Testament were 
written by the men to whom they are ascribed — the 
original disciples of Christ — and are consequently 
authentic ? 

We pursue precisely the same method in deter- 
mining the authorship of the New Testament, as in 
ascertaining that of any other book of a passed age. 
For example; we possess a celebrated poem en- 
titled Paradise Lost. It bears the name of Milton. 
How do we know that Milton composed it? The 
answer is easy. Our fathers received it, as his pro- 
duction, from their fathers ; and they, from theirs. 
By such steps, we ascend to the very year in which 
the book was first published, and find it invariably 
ascribed to Milton. Moreover, the history of the 

D 



34 X.ECTURE II, 

age in which he lived, speaks of it as unquestionably 
and notoriously his work. Writers of every suc- 
ceeding age refer to and quote it, as well known to 
be his. The language of the poem bears the cha- 
racteristic marks of Milton's times. Its spirit, 
genius, and style, display the distinctive features of 
Milton's mind and character. And, finally, though 
Milton had many enemies, and lived in a time of 
great divisions, and this poem redounded greatly to 
his praise, and many must have been disposed, had 
they been able, to discover some false pretensions in 
his claim to the authorship ; no other person in that 
age was ever mentioned as disputing his title, but 
all united in acknowledging him as the writer of 
Paradise Lost. On this evidence, although the 
poem professes to have been written as far back as 
the year 1 674, we are so perfectly certain of its au- 
thenticity, that the man who should dispute it would 
be justly suspected of idiocy or insanity. And 
had Milton lived in the 7th, instead of the 17th 
century, a similar body of evidence would have 
been equally satisfactory. If, instead of the 7th 
century, he had lived in the first of the christian era, 
similar evidence, reaching up to his time, would still 
prove, beyond a question, tliat he wrote Paradise 
Lost. ' Thus it is evident that time has no eflPect to 
impair the force of such proof. Whether a book 
be ascribed to the christian era or to five centuries 
before or after, the evidence, being the same, is 
equally satisfactory. It as well convinces us that 
the history ascribed to Herodotus, in the 5th cen- 
tury before Christ, was written by that historian, as 
that the JSneid was written by Virgil a little before 
the birth of Christ; or the '' Faerie Queene' by 
Spenser, in the 1590th year after that event. We 
are no less satisfied of the authenticity of the 
Orations of Demosthenes, than of Newton's Pnn- 
cioia, though, between the dates of their publication, 



LECTURE II. 35 

there is an interval of more than two thousand 
years. So little does the age of a book affect the 
evidence required to establish its authenticity. 

Now, in ascertaining the authorship of the New 
Testament, we are furnished with evidence precisely 
similar to that which settles the question so con- 
clusively as to either of the works above mentioned.* 
An unbroken chain of testimony ascends from the 
present generation to the preceding, and thence to 
the next beyond, and thence onward again, till it 
reaches the very age of the apostles, exhibiting an 
uninterrupted series of acknowledgments of ^ the 
New Testament, as having been written indeed by 
those primitive disciples to whom its several parts 
are ascribed. Besides this, historians and other 
writers of the age ascribed to this volume,' as well 
Heathen and Jewish, as Christian, not only recog- 
nize its existence in their day, but speak of it as 
notoriously the production of its reputed authors. 
And again, although the New Testament at the time 
of its first appearance, either in parts or collectively, 
was surrounded with numerous, learned, and inge- 
nious, as well as most bitter enemies, both among 
heathens and Jews; and although there arose at an 
early period, many animated controversies between 
the real believers in gospel truth, on one side, and 
sundry heretical pretenders to the christian faith, 
whose cause would often have been materially 
served by a well-sustained denial of the authenticity 
of certain of the books of the New Testament ; none 
in the primitive ages, whether heretics or open ene- 
mies, ever denied that this volume contained the 

* "We know,'* says St. Augustine, " the writings of the 
Apostles, as we know the works of Plato, Aristotle, Cicero, 
Varro, and others ; and as we know the writings of divers 
ecclesiastical authors ; for as much as they have the testi- 
mony of contemporaries, and of those who have lived in suc- 
ceeding ages/' 

D 2 



36 LECTURE II. 

genuine writings of the original apostles and dis- 
ciples of Christ. On the contrary, all received, 
argued, and acted upon it as unquestionably authen- 
tic. Thus we have the same evidence that the 
books of the New Testament were written by those 
whose names they bear, as that Paradise Lost was 
written by the man whose name it bears. The force 
of this evidence is in no wise diminished by the 
consideration that the apostles lived in the first, and 
Milton in the seventeeth century. 

Thus have you received a general outhne ot the 
argument. We proceed to a more particular 



view. 



I, The books of the New Testament are quoted 
or alluded to by a series of writers, who may 
be followed up in unbroken succession from the 
present age to that of the apostles. In proof 
of this, it is unnecessary for the satisfaction of any 
person of ordinary information to trace the line of 
testimony from the present time, or from any point 
of departure, lower down than the fourth century. 
Whoever has the least acquaintance with the his- 
tory of the civilized world, as far upward as the 
fourth century, must know that the acknowledg- 
ment of the New Testament, as composed of authen- 
tic writings, is interwoven with all the literature, 
science, a^nd political, as well as religious institu- 
tions, of every subsequent age. We begm, there- 
fore, the chain of testimony at the fourth century. 

It is a very impressive evidence of the high esti- 
mate in which the New Testament was universally 
held at this period, that, beside innumerable quota- 
tions in various writings, no less than ten distinct 
and formal catalogues of its several books were 
composed at various times, during the fourth cen- 
tury by different hands ; and two of them by large 
and solemn councils of the heads of the christian 
church. All of these are still extant ; and all 



LECTURE n. 37 

agree, in every particular, important to the present 
argument, with the list of the New Testament writ- 
ings as at present received. In the year 397, a 
national or provincial council assembled at Car- 
thage, consisting of forty-four bishops — Augustine, 
bishop of Hippo, was a member. The 47th canon 
of that council is thus written : ** It is ordained 
that nothing beside the canonical scriptures be read 
in the church under the name of divine scriptures ; 
and the canonical scriptures are these," &c. In 
the enumeration, we find precisely our New Testa- 
ment books, and no more.* 

About the same time, Augustine wrote a book, 
entitled *' Of the Christian Doctrine ^^^ in which is 
furnished a catalogue of what he considered the 
authentic writings of the evangelists and apostles, 
agreeing entirely with ours. ** In these books (saith 
he) they who fear God, seek his wilL''^\' 

A short time before this, Rufinus, a presbyter of 
Aquileia, published an ** Explication of the Apostles^ 
Creed,'^ in which he includes a catalogue of the 
scriptures. It commences thus : ** It will not be 
improper to enumerate here, the books of the New 
and Old Testament, which we find, by the monu- 
ments of the fathers, to have been delivered to the 
churches, as inspired by the Holy Spirit." This list 
differs in nothing from ours. J 

Jerome, a contemporaneous writer, universally 
allowed to have been the most learned of the Latin 
fathers, in a letter concerning the study of the 
scriptures, enumerates the books of the New Testa- 
ment in precise correspondence with our volume. 
With regard to the epistle to the Hebrews, he 
states, that by some it was not considered as the 
work of Paul ; though it is evident, from other 
places of his writings, that he was satisfied of its 

* Lardner*s Credibility of the Gosp. Hist. xi. 574. 
t Lardner, xi. 578. t lb. xi. 573. 



38 LECTURE II. 

authenticity, and numbered it among the canonical 
scriptures.* 

In the year 380, wrote Philastrius, bishop of 
Brescia. In a book '' Concerning Heresies,'' he 
gives a catalogue agreeing entirely with ours, except 
that it omits the epistle to the Hebrews, and the 
book of Revelation. But it does not follow that 
these were not considered canonical. The object of 
his catalogue is to enumerate the books appointed 
to be read in the churches. The epistle to the 
Hebrews, he says, was read in the churches " some- 
times." " Some pretend (he writes) that additions 
have been made to it by some heterodox persons, 
and that for that reason it ought not to be read in 
the churches, though it is read by some." Philas- 
trius himself received it, and frequently quoted it 
as the work of St. Paul, and reckoned it a heresy 
to reject it. He received also the book of Revela- 
tion, mentioning its rejection by some, among the 
heresies of the age, '' There are some (he writes) 
who dare to say that the Revelation is not a writing 
of John the apostle and evangelist. "f 

About the year 370, flourished Gregory Nazian- 
zen, bishop of Constantinople, who, in a work " On 
the True and Genuine Scriptures,'' enumerates all 
the present books of the New Testament, except 
that of Revelation. This, however, he has quoted 
in his other works. J 

At the same time, wrote Epiphanius, bishop of 
Constantia, in Cyprus; " a man of five languages." 
He wrote against heresies, and gave a list of the 
New Testament books which agrees exactly with 
ours.§ 

About the year 350, another catalogue was pub- 
lished by the Council of Laodicea, differing in 
nothing from ours but in the omission of Revela- 
tion. The decrees of this council were, in a short 

* Lardner, xi. 548. t lb. xi. 522. tlb.470,4n. §Ib.4lG. 



LECTURE ir. 39 

.time, received into the canons of the universal 
church; so that as early as about the middle of the 
fourth century, we find a universal agreement, in all 
parts of the world in which Christianity existed, as 
to the constituent parts of the New Testament, with 
the single exception of the book of Revelation. That 
this was also generally received, and why any 
doubted its authenticity, will appear in our subse- 
quent progress.* 

Athanasius and Cyril, the latter bishop of Jerusa- 
lem, a little earlier in the century, have furnished 
catalogues— that of the former agreeing entirely 
with ours ; that of the latter, in every thing but the 
omission of the Revelation of St. John. 

The last catalogue to be mentioned in the fourth 
century, is that of Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, 
who flourished about the year 315. *' A man (says 
Jerome) most studious in the divine scriptures, and 
very diligent in making a large collection of eccle- 
siastical writers." In his Ecclesiastical History, he 
mentions, as belonging to the canon of scripture, all 
our present books. While he speaks of the Epistle 
of James, the second of Peter, the third of John, 
and the book of Revelation, as questioned by some, 
he states that they were generally received, and 
declares his own conviction that they ought not to 

be doubted.f 

The above testimonies, though capable of great 
multiplication, are amply sufficient to exhibit the 
universal confidence of Christians, of the fourth 
century, in the authenticity of the New Testament. 
Let us proceed to the third. In this, among other 
important names, we find that of the celebrated 
Origen, who flourished about the year 230, having 
been born, a.d. 184. Jerome speaks of him, as 
the greatest doctor of the churches, since the 

* Lardner, ii. 414. Alexander on the Canon, p. 150. 

t Lardner, ii. 308, Sec. 



40 LECTURE II. 

apostles— that he had the scriptures by heart, and 
laboured day and night in studying and explaining 
them.* Great numbers of all descriptions of men 
attended his lectures. Heathen philosophers dedi- 
cated their writings to him, and submitted them 
to his revisal. He wrote a threefold exposition of 
the books of scripture, on which he bestowed all his 
learning. He lived within a hundred years of the 
death of St. John, and was therefore so near the 
time of the publication of the books of the New 
Testament, that he could hardly avoid obtaining the 
most accurate knowledge of their origin and authors. 
His enumeration of these writings contains no other 
books than those of our sacred volume, and includes 
all that we receive, except the Epistles of James and 
Jude, which could not have been omitted by design, 
as in other places he expressly acknowledges them 
as part of the sacred canon. 

Beside Origen, we have, in the third century, 
Victorinus, a bishop in Germany; Cyprian, bishop of 
Carthage; Gregory, of Neo-Ceesarea ; and Dionysius, 
of Alexandria — in whose writings are found most 
copious quotations from almost every book of the 
New Testament. 

We proceed to the second century. Here we meet 
withTertuUian, a native of Carthage, born about the 
year 150, within fifty years of the last of the apos- 
tles, and renowned in his day as a learned, vigorous, 
and voluminous writer in defence of Christianity. 
His works abound in quotations of the most direct 
kind, and with long extracts from all the books of 
the New Testament, except four of the minor Epis- 
tles which, as he no where professes to give a formal 
catalogue, he may easily be supposed to have passed 
unquoted, without entertaining any opinion unfa- 
vourable to their authenticity. TertuUian s quotations 
occupy nearly thirty folio pages. ** There are more 

* Lardner, i. 527. 



LECTURE II. 41 

and larger quotations of the small volume of the New 
Testament in this one christian author, than of all 
the works of Cicero — in the writers of all characters 
for several ages''* 

The same is true with regard to Irenaeus, and 
Clement of Alexandria, both writers of the second 
century. In what spirit these early Christians re- 
garded the authority of the New Testament books, 
may be judged from the manner of their quotations. 
Irenseus writes: '* As the blessed Paul says, in the 
epistle to the Ephesians, v. 30 : * For we are mem- 
bers of his body, of his flesh, and of his bones.' *' 
And so Clement, '* The blessed Paul, in the first 
epistle to the Corinthians: * Brethren, be not chil- 
dren in understanding,' " &c. 

It deserves to be specially noted that, in this early 
age, the book of Revelation is expressly ascribed to 
St. John. The testimony of Irenaeus to this effect 
is so full and strong, that it may justly be consi- 
dered as putting its authenticity entirely beyond 
reasonable dispute. f 

There is abundant evidence that, in the second 
century, the books of the New Testament were open 
to all, and well known in the world. In TertuUian's 
Apology, addressed to the Roman presidents, he 
challenges an inspection of the scriptures. " Look 
into the words of God, our scriptures, which we our- 
selves do not conceal, and many accidents bring into 
the way of those who are not of our religion." In 
this appeal, he calls the attention of the heathen 
rulers to the Epistles and Gospels, as constituting, 
'* the words of God, our scriptures."! 

There is good reason to believe that, in the time 
of Tertullian, the very autographs, or original letters 
of the apostles, were in the possession of those 
churches to which they had been specially directed* 
*' If (says this ancient writer) you be willing to exer- 
» Lardner, i. 435. t lb. i. 372. X lb. i. 434. 



42 LECTURE II. 

cise your curiosity profitably in the business of your 
salvation, visit the apostolical churches, in which the 
very chairs of the apostles still preside ; in which 
their very authentic letters are recited, sounding 
forth the voice, and representing the countenance, of 
each one of them. Is Achaia near you ? You have 
Corinth. If you are not far from Macedonia, you 
have Philippi, you have Thessalonica,"* &c. If Ter- 
tullian did not mean that the original manuscripts, 
but only authentic copies of the Epistles to the 
Corinthians, Philippians, &c., were to be seen by 
application to those churches, why send inquirers 
thither ? Could an authentic copy of the epistle to 
the Philippians be seen nowhere but at Philippi ; or 
of that to the Corinthians, nowhere but at Corinth?! 

The quotations from the New Testament, in the 
writings of the second century, are so numerous, that 
were the sacred volume lost, a large part of it might 
be collected from them alone. Passing by the testi- 
monies of Melito, bishop of Sardis, who wrote a com- 
mentary on the book of Revelation, and of Hegesip- 
pus, converted from Judaism, and of Tatian, who 
composed a harmony of the Gospels, all born about 
the time of the death of St. John, we come to Justin 
Martyr, born about ten years prior to that event. 
Before his conversion from heathenism, he studied 
philosophy in the schools of the Stoics, Peripatetics, 
Pythagoreans, and Platonics, After becoming a 
Christian, he occupied a high stand in learned writ- 
ing and holy living. His remaining works contain 
numerous quotations from, as well as allusions to, the 
four Gospels, which he uniformly represents as con- 
taining " the genuine and authentic accoimts of Jesus 
Christ and of his doctrine." The same is true in 
relation to the Acts of the Apostles, and the greater 
part of the Epistles. The book of Revelation is ex- 
pressly said by Justin to have been written by 

* Lardner, i. 424. t Alexander on the Canon, p. 143. 



LECTURE II. 43 

** John, one of the apostles of Christ." Having lived 
before the death of that apostle, he had the best 
opportunity of knowing. 

We finish the second century with Papias, bishop 
of Hierapolis in Asia, whom Irenaeus speaks of as a 
hearer of John, and a disciple of Polycarp, a pupil 
of John the apostle.* How he obtained his informa- 
tion, will appear from the only fragment of his writ- 
ings remaining. It is found in Eusebius. ** If 
at any time, I met with one who had conversed 
with the elders, I inquired after the sayings of the 
elders: what Andrew or what Peter said; or 
what Philip, Thomas, or James, had said; what John 
or Matthew, or what any other of the disciples of the 
Lord, were wont to say.'^f Thus we have a witness 
who lived near enough to the beginning, to inquire 
of those who had conversed with the apostles, if not 
to listen to St. John himself. Too little remains of 
his writings to furnish many testimonies, especially 
as he had it not in view to confirm the authenticity 
of any part of scripture ; but still he gives a very 
valuable testimony to the Gospels of Matthew and 
Mark, and the first Epistles of Peter and John. He 
alludes to the Acts and the book of Revelation. 

Thus we have ascended to the apostolic age. 
But we may reach still higher. We have in our 
possession the well-authenticated writings of five 
individuals and fathers in the primitive church, who, 
because they were contemporary with the apostles, 
are called apostolical fathers. Three of them, 
Barnabas, Clement, and Hermas, are mentioned by 
name in the New Testament;! the fourth, Polycarp, 
was an immediate disciple of St. John ; the fifth, 
Ignatius, enjoyed the privilege of frequent inter- 
course with the apostles. There is scarcely a book 

* Lardner, i. 3S6. t lb., i. 3.S7. 

X Acts xiii. 2,3.; 46,47. 1 Cor. ix. 4—7. Phil, i v. 3. 
Rom. xvi. 14. 



44 LECTURE II. 

of the New Testament, which one or another of thesd 
writers has not either quoted or alluded to. Though 
what is extant of their works is very little, it contains 
more than two hundred and twenty quotations, or 
allusions to the writings of our sacred volume, in 
which they are uniformly treated with the reverence 
belonging to inspired books, calling them ** the 
Sacred Scriptures /' ** the Oracles of the Lord.'' 
Their testimony is not universal, inasmuch as it is 
incidental. They had no design of enumerating for 
posterity, or their contemporaries, the books of 
scripture. There was no controversy on that subject 
in their age. It would have seemed a needless waste 
of words, had they attempted to decide a question 
which no one asked. It is very natural, therefore, 
considering the brevity of their remaining works, 
and the incidental character of their quotations, that 
some of the shorter writings of the New Testament 
should not be alluded to ; while the fact that, by 
one or another, almost every book is quoted or 
alluded to, and that the whole number of quotations 
or allusions is upwards of two hundred and twenty, 
accompanied with every mark of reverence and 
submission, is a most impressive proof that the 
authenticity and inspired authority of the New 
Testament books were then notorious and unques- 
tioned among christians. 

Thus we have ascended the line of testimony into 
the presence of the apostles. Our evidence has 
been collected from only a few out of the many 
witnesses that might have been cited. It has been 
derived from writers of different times, and of 
countries widely separated — from philosophers, rhe- 
toricians, and divines, all men of acuteness and 
learning in their days, all concurring in their testi- 
mony that the books of the New Testament were 
equally known in distant regions, and received as 
authentic by men and churches tliat had no inter- 



LECTURE n. 4u 

course v/ith one another. The argument is now, 
therefore, reduced to this. The apostles and dis- 
ciples of Christ are known to have left some writ- 
ings. That those writings have been lost, none 
can give a reason for believing. It is not pretended 
that any other volume than that of the New Testa- 
ment contains them. The books contained in this 
volume, were considered to be the writings of the 
apostles, by the whole christian church, as far back 
as those who were their contemporaries and com- 
panions, being continually quoted and alluded to as 
such. It was impossible that such witnesses should 
be deceived. Contemporaries and companions must 
have known whether they quoted the genuine works 
of the apostles, or only forgeries pretending to their 
names. Our evidence, therefore, is complete. 
What I have presented, exceeds, above measure, 
the evidence for the authenticity of any other 
ancient book. Should the fiftieth part of it be 
demanded for any Roman or Grecian production, 
its character must be condemned as unworthy of 
confidence. 

Before relinquishing this department of evidence, 
there are certain very important particulars w^iich, 
though embraced in what has been already ad- 
vanced, require a more special notice. 

1st. It is worthy of distinct remark, that when 
the books of the New Testament are quoted or 
alluded to by those whose testimony has been 
adduced, they are treated with supreme regard, as 
possessing an authority belonging to no other hooks, 
and as conclusive in questions of religion. For 
example, Irenseus, born about a. d. 97, calls them 
'^ Divine Oracles ;'' "• Scriptures of the Lord'' He 
says that the Gospel was " committed to v/riting by 
the will of God, that it might be, foi time to come, 
the foundation and pillar of our faith "* *' He fled 

* Lardner, i. 372. 



46 LECTURE II. 

to the Gospels, which he believed no less than if 
Christ had been speaking to him ; and to the 
writings of the apostles, whom he esteemed as the 
presbytery of the whole christian church." Origen, 
born about a. d. 184, says, ** Christians believe 
Jesus to be the Son of God, in a sense not to be 
explained and made known to men, by any but 
by that scripture alone which is inspired by the Holy 
Ghost ; that is, the evangelic and apostolic scrip- 
ture, as also that of the law and the prophets."* 
Cyprian, bishop of Carthage, born about the end 
of the second century, earnestly exhorts " all in 
general, but especially christian ministers, in all 
doubtful matters, to have recourse to the Gospels 
and the Epistles of the apostles, as to the fountain 
where may be found the true original doctrine of 
Christ." ** The precepts of the Gospel (he says) 
are to be considered as the lessons of God to us ; as 
the foundations of our hope, and the supports of out 
faith."t 

2d. The books of the New Testament were united 
at a very early period in a distinct volume. Not 
to mention, in evidence of this, that in all the 
earliest writers, the Gospels and Epistles are spoken 
of as constituting a notorious collection of sacred 
authorities, divided into those two parts ; we have 
Tertullian, born only fifty years after the death of 
St. John, calling the collection of the Gospels the 
'* evangelical iyistrument ;** the whole volume, the 
** New Testament ;" and the two parts, the '* Gos- 
pels and Apostles.^* 

3d. The books of the New Testameyit were, at a 
very early period, publicly read and expounded in 
the congregations of Christians, Chrysostoni, born 
about A. D. 347, testifies, that " the Gospels, when 
written, were not hid in a corner, or buried in obscu- 
rity, but made known to all the world, before enemies 

* Lardner, i. 545. t lb., ii. 27, and 592, 593. 



LECTURE II. 47 

as well as others, even as they are ivow/' Irenseus, 
about two hundred years earlier, says, that in his 
time, " all the scriptures, both Prophecies and Gos- 
pels, are open and clear, and may he heard of all r* 
Still earlier, we find Justin Martyr giving the emperor 
an account of the christian worship, in which it is 
written: '* The memoirs of the apostles or the writ- 
ings of the prophets are read, according as the time 
allows; and when the reader has ended, the presi^ 
dent makes a discourse, exhorting to the imitation of 
so excellent things. "f The custom, here mentioned, 
is evidently spoken of as notorious and universal. 
This was about the year 140. But a practice thus 
general and familiar could hardly have grown up in 
less than forty years before the writing of this last 
witness. Thus we reach the life of St. John, and 
may, therefore, consider it as satisfactorily proved 
that, at a period as early as the last years of St. John, 
the scriptures of the New Testament were publicly 
read and expounded in the churches of Christians. 
Such is the natural inference, from many passages in 
the works of Augustine, of the fourth century. For 
example, ** The canonical books of scripture being 
read every where, the miracles therein recorded are 
well known to all people." '* The Epistles of Peter 
and Paul are daily recited to the people." And to 
what people? And to how many people? Listen to 
the Psalm: " Their sound hath gone out into all the 
earth.** Again: ** The genuineness and integrity 
of the same scriptures may be relied on, which have 
been spread all over the world, and which from the 
time of their publication were in the highest esteem, 
and have been carefully kept in the churches *^l 

4th. During the primitive ages of Christianity, 
commentaries were written \ipon the books of the 
New Testament ; harmonies of them were formed, 
copies diligently compared, and translations mad^ 

* Lardner, i. 3T2. t lb. i. 3f5. \ lb. ii. 593, 594. 



48 LECTURE 11. 

into different languages. In proof of these asser- 
tions, it is needless, after the citations already made, 
to call up testimony. It may be found abundantly 
in Paley's Evidences;* where it is well said, that 
" no greater proof can be given of the esteern in- 
which these ancient books were holden by the ancient 
Christians, or of the sense then entertained of their 
value and importance, than the industry bestowed 
upon them. Moreover, it shows that they were then 
considered as ancient books. Men do not write com- 
ments upon publications of their own times ; there- 
fore the testimonies cited under this head, afford an 
evidence which carries up the evangelic writings 
much beyond the age of the testimonies themselves, 
and to that of their reputed authors.'' There is but 
a single example of a christian writer during the 
three first centuries, composing comments upon any 
other books than those in the New Testament. Cle- 
ment, of Alexandria, is mentioned by Eusebius as 
having written short notes upon an apocryphal book, 
called the Revelation of Peter; but that he did not 
consider it as having authority, may be inferred from 
the fact mentioned by Eusebius, that in his other 
works it was nowhere quoted. f 

5th. From the view we have taken of primitive 
testimony, it appears that the agreement of the 
ancient church as to luhat were the authentic books 
of the New Testament, is complete. Of thirteen 
catalogues, the earliest of which was furnished by 
Origen, living within a hundred years of St. John ; 
all of which were drawn up, either by solemn coun- 
cils, or distinguished heads of the church, residing in 
various and widely remote parts of the world ; of 
these thirteen, seven, including the earliest, agree 
exactly with our New Testament list; three others 
differ only in the omission of the book of Revelation, 
for which they had a special reason not implicating 
* P. i. c. ix. ^ vi. t Lardner, i. 410. 



LECTURE II. 49 

its authenticity; and in two of the remaining, the 
books omitted, and spoken of as doubtful in the 
estimation of some, were acknowledged and quoted 
as authentic by the framers of the catalogues. The 
fathers, in all their writings, and of all ages and 
countries, appeal to the same scriptures as infallible 
authority. The consent of the ancient church was 
therefore universal. So far as the argument for the 
divine revelation of the Gospel is connected with the 
authenticity of any of the books, it was without 
exception. The books omitted in some writers and 
catalogues, have no essential reference to the great 
question, whether the Gospel of Christ is of divine 
revelation. 

6th. The agreement among the various sects of 
heretics in the earliest centuries, is as entire as that 
of the orthodox fathers. The authenticity of the 
l)ooks of the New Testament was acknowledged even 
by those to whose sectarian interest their authority 
was extremely detrimental. Instead of venturing to 
dispute their having been written by their reputed 
authors, they sought refuge in arbitrary interpreta- 
tions of such passages as opposed their favourite 
views. Some among the Gnostics, for example, 
unable to escape the apostolic character of the sacred 
books, maintained the necessity of giving an allego- 
rical turn to their declarations. And when, in the 
course of time, heretics did undertake to question 
the authenticity of some portions of the New Testa- 
ment, their accusation was not based upon any his- 
torical or testimonial objections, but confined to 
some trifling and pretended internal causes of excep- 
tion, which only their own convenience could dis- 
cover. Some of these later heretics, being opposed 
to the doctrine of the influences of the Holy Spirit, 
denied the Gospel of St. John, because it contains 
the promise of that divine Teacher and Comforter. 
But with regard to those of an earlier date, Ireneeus, 

£ 



50 LECTURE II. 

of the second century, writes, '' So great is the cer- 
tainty in regard to our Gospels, that even the heretics 
themselves bear testimony in their favour; and all 
acknowledging them, each endeavours to establish 
from them his own opinions/'* Origen, on account 
as well of his candour and acquaintance with the 
heresies of his times, as of the early age in which 
he lived, should be considered a competent witness 
on this head. He states, that the heretics endea- 
voured to impose upon people by alleging texts 
of scripture for their particular tenets, though they 
quoted them in a very unfair and mutilated man- 
ner ; and that they appealed to them because they 
were the only writings whose authority was univer- 
sally allowed. t Testimony more impressive than 
this, to the apostolic authorship of the New Testa- 
ment books, cannot be demanded. , . . , 

7th. The several heads of evidence which have 
now been made out in proof of the authenticity of 
the New Testament, cannot he pretended to with 
regard to any of those writings which are called 
Apocryphal Scriptures, To some who are aware 
that in the early ages of Christianity there existed 
a variety of apocryphal Gospels, and other compo- 
sitions, pretending to have been written by the 
apostles, it may be difficult to imagine by what 
rule the true works of the inspired writers were 
separated, without embarrassment and with suffi- 
cient confidence, from all mere pretenders to that 
hio-h original. But it greatly enhances one's sense 
of°the prodigious weight of evidence m support ot 
the true scriptures, to learn how broad and unques- 
tionable was the distinction. 

Among the apocryphal writings, there are two 
classes. One is that of histories, which assumed 
the names of the apostles, but were literally forge- 
ries, and therefore spurious, as well as apocryphal. 
* Storr & Flatt's Bib. Theol. i. 07. t Lardner, iv. 521, 522 



LECTURE II. 51 

The other consists of certain writings of a christian 
character, and either entirely or in part historical, 
which are not spurious^ but called apocryphal be- 
cause their age and authors are unknown, or their 
authority is of no weight. 

Of the first class, it may be asserted, without any 
hazard, that none are quoted within three hundred 
years after the birth of Christ, by any writer now 
extant or known ; or if any are quoted, it is inva- 
riably with marks of censure and rejection.* The 
only possible exception is the Gospel according 
to the Hebrews, <* which (says Lardner) was pro- 
bably either St. Matthew's Gospel in his original 
Hebrew, with some additions ; or^ as I rather think, 
a Hebrew translation of St. Matthew's Greek origi- 
nal, with the additions above mentioned.'* But this 
is quoted nowhere, without marks of discredit, except 
in one place in the works of Clement of Alexandria. 

Of the second class, none but a book called the 
Preaching of Peter, and another entitled the Re- 
velation of Peter, are quoted, without positive con- 
demnation, by any writer of the three first centu- 
ries. These are spoken of only by the same Cle- 
ment of Alexandria. Compare with these facts, 
the immense mass and variety of concurrent testi- 
monies to the books of the New Testament in the 
writers of the three first centuries; testimonies 
from all countries and all classes — orthodox or here^ 
tics ; remember for example that you may find in 
the extant works of Tertullian, or of Irenseus, or of 
Clement of Alexandria, more and larger quotations 
of the small volume of the New Testament, than 
you can find in writers of all characters, for seve- 
ral ages, of the works of Cicero, though voluminous, 
and always so universally popular ; and it will be 
evident that the apocryphal writings could have 
presented no difficulties in ascertaining the authen- 

* Paley's Evidences. 
E 2 



52 LECTURE II. 

tic books of the apostles. None of them were 
read as having apostoUc authority m the churches 
of Christians; nor adnnitted into their sacred vo- 
lume ; nor included in their catalogues ; nor noticed 
as authentic by the adversaries of Christianity ; nor 
appealed to by all parties calling themselves Chris- 
tians, as authority in their controversies; nor 
treated with sufficient respect to be made the sub- 
jects of commentaries, collections or translations, 
unless the brief notes on the Revelation of Peter, 
by Clement of Alexandria, should merit exception. 
So wide was the contrast between the true and the 
false ; so easily were the true scriptures distin- 
guished from all unauthorized pretenders to that 

honourable name. 

But this is capable of being exhibited still more 
impressively. We have stated several important 
evidenceo of authenticit^f, all of which are found 
in the New Testament, and none in any ot 
the apocryphal writings. We will now exhioit 
certain evidences of spuriousness. all ot which are 
found in the apocryphal writings, and none m those 
of the New Testament. The reasons which render 
the authenticity of a work suspicious, are thus enu- 
merated in the learned Introduction to the New 
Testament by Michaelis :—\ , When doubts have 
been entertained, from its first appearance whether 
it was the work of its reputed author. 2. When his 
immediate friends, who were able to judge, have 
denied it to be his. 3. When a long series of years 
has elapsed after his death, in which the book was 
unknown, and in which it must have been nien- 
tioned or quoted, had it been in existence. 4. When 
the style is different from that of his other writ- 
ings ; or, in case no others remain, different trom 
what might be reasonably expected. 5. When 
events are recorded which happened later than the 
time of the pretended author. 6. When opinions 



LECTURE II. 53 

are advanced contradictory to those which he is 
known to have maintained in other writings.* Now, 
it may be affirmed, without fear of contradiction, 
that the apocryphal books exhibit all these evidences 
of spuriousness ; none of them being exempt from 
nearly the whole list, and few of them deficient in 
any particular. While, with equal confidence, it is 
asserted that the books of the New Testament exhibit 
none of them. In no book of that holy volume are 
opinions professed that are contradictory to any 
which the reputed author is known elsewhere to have 
maintained ; nor are facts recorded which happened 
later than the age in which he lived ; nor is the style 
different from that of his other writings, or from what 
might reasonably have been expected from his pen. 
No book of the New Testament was unknown during 
a long series of years subsequent to the death of the 
individual to whom it is ascribed; none can be 
shown to have been denied by the near friends of the 
reputed author as his production ; no doubts can be 
proved to have been entertained of the authenticity 
of any part of the New Testament at the time of its 
first publication. 

That apocryphal writings existed in the first cen- 
turies, is a fact which so far from embarrassing the 
evidence for the authenticity of the New Testament 
books, and the truth of the gospel history, very 
materially confirms it. Had it not been notorious 
that the apostles did write Gospels and Epistles, it is 
not likely that so many would have attempted to 
pass off spurious Gospels, &c. in their names. Had 
it not been that the fame of Christ and his apostles 
was very great in all lands, from the beginning, it is 
not probable that all these apocryphal authors would 
have thought of writing about them, or in their names ; 
much less that they would have expected a market 
for their works. Had it not been notorious and 

* Michaelis' Int. i. p. 25. 



54 LECTURE II. 

universally allowed, that Christ and his apostles 
wrought miracles, and did niany wonderful works, it 
is not probable that all these writers would have 
taken it for granted, and sought to build up their 
particular opinions upon the assumption. '' They 
all suppose the dignity of our Lord's person, and a 
power of working miracles, together with a high 
degree of authority, as having been conveyed by him 
to his apostles."* 

That apocryphal books should have been pub- 
lished in the name of the apostles, is precisely what 
was to be expected from the wide circulation, great 
popularity, and eminent reverence, which their 
authentic writings had obtained. Current notes 
soon awaken a disposition to counterfeit them. 
Popular medicines soon bring into the market apo- 
cryphal inventions wearing their names. The effort 
to pass ofF the latter is the best proof of the estima- 
tion of the former. 

The New Testament writers have been treated, in 
this respect, precisely like others. So writes Augus- 
tine: " No writings ever had a better testimony 
afforded them, than those of the apostles and evan- 
gelists; nor does it weaken the credit and authority 
of books received by the church from the beginning, 
that some other writings have been without ground, 
and falsely, ascribed to the apostles ; for the like has 
happened, for instance, to Hippocrates ; but yet his 
genuine works have been distinguished from others, 
which have been published under his name.'H Such, 
also, has been the case with many others. Several 
spurious orations were published under the names of 
Lysias and Demosthenes. Works were ascribed to 
Plautus, and Virgil, and Horace, which had no title 
to their names. But it was no difficult matter for 
the Greek and Roman critics to separate the genuine 
from the apocryphal works of those authors. Thus 
* Lardner, ill. 131. t lb. iii. 134. 



LECTURE II. 55 

it was also with the early Christians. They proved 
all things, and held fast that only which was good, 
'' We receive Peter and the other apostles, as Christ, 
(said Serapion, bishop of Antioch ;) but, as skilful 
men, we reject those writings which are falsely 
ascribed to them.'* 

Here we might safely leave the question of authen- 
ticity ; for, if the evidence adduced does not prove 
the New Testament books to have proceeded from 
the apostles, no book of a passed age has any pre- 
tension to authenticity ; that Milton wrote Paradise 
Lost, must be considered unworthy of credit ; that 
the orations bearing the name of Cicero, were com- 
posed or delivered by that orator, must be condemned 
as one of the apocryphal inventions of some age of 
monks and darkness. *' I find more sure marks of 
authenticity in the New Testament (said sir Isaac 
Newton) than in any profane history whatever." 

But, inasmuch as your minds cannot be furnished 
with too much information on this fundamental sub- 
ject,! will reserve some important views for a subse- 
quent lecture. 

There is a lesson for the believer, in what has 
been exhibited, of great practical interest. It is 
manifest, from the testimonies adduced, that the 
scriptures of the New Testament were treated, among 
the primitive Christians, not only as true, and pos- 
sessed of inspired authority, in reference to all ques- 
tions of doctrine and obedience ; but as very precious, 
*' more to be desired than gold." They loved them 
as an inestimable treasure ; they kept them, con- 
sulted them,^ and exalted them in their hearts, and 
houses, and assemblies, as a consolation for every 
trial, a guide in every difficulty, a gift of God, for 
the preservation and honour of which they were ready 
to shed their blood. They felt them to be " profit- 
able for doctrine, reproof, correction, and instruction 
in righteousness." How does all this rebuke the 



56 LECTURE III. 

liikewarmness with which the scriptures are regarded 
by too many professing Christians of the present day. 
In primitive times, behevers would read them, though 
they paid for the privilege with their lives. In these 
days, multitudes, who call themselves believers, can 
hardly be persuaded to search the scriptures, though 
every facility is afforded, and the Bible is in honour. 
What a tremendous account must he give to God, 
who neglects His word ! Let us imitate not only the 
affectionate devotion with which the primitive Chris- 
tians read the Bible, but also the diligent zeal with 
which they surmounted innumerable obstacles, in 
circulating copies of its books through the world. 
We possess facilities for such an object which they 
had not. The press is placed in our hands for this 
very purpose. It is our gift of tongues. Let us 
realize the responsibility we are under, for the 
improvement of so rich a talfent ; and speed its work, 
^nd multiply its branches of application, till the 
sound of the Gospel has gone out into all the earth, 
and the words of Jesus to the ends of the world ; and 
there is nothing hid from the light thereof. 



LECTURE IIL 

AUTHENTICITY AND INTEGRITY OF THE NEW 

TESTAMENT. 

Our attention was exclusively occupied, during 
the last lecture, in tracing up the line of testimony 
by which the church of Christ, in these days, is 
certified that her sacred books, composing the 
volume of the New Testament, are those very books 
which were written by the apostles of the Lord 
Jesus. A series of attestations was followed up, 
by which we were conducted into the very age and 
presence of the apostles, and enabled to inquire of 



LECTURE III. 59 

those who, having been their contemporaries, and in 
habits of intercourse with them, must necessarily 
have known what books they wrote. A mass of 
evidence was obtained, by which the authenticity 
of the New Testament was placed on the most im- 
moveable basis. But, inasmuch as we are now 
laying the foundation of our subsequent and more 
direct arguments for the truth of Christianity as a 
divine revelation; it is of the greatest importance 
that, in respect to this preliminary subject, every 
mind be well assured, and that nothing of import- 
ance to the impressiveness, as well as sufficiency, 
of the evidence, be omitted. In the present lecture, 
therefore, we pursue still farther the question to 
which the last was devoted. 

From the whole tenor of the previous lecture, it is 
evident that the canon of the New Testament, in 
other words, the collection of those books which 
were considered as the inspired and authoritative 
writings of the apostles and evangelists, to the ex- 
elusion of all others, was not made luithout great 
care, and the most deliberate, intelligent investiga- 
tion. Such is the witnessing of an eminent writer 
of the fourth century. ** Our canonical books, (says 
Augustine,) which are of the highest authority 
among us, have been settled ivith great care : they 
ought to be few, lest their value should be di- 
minished; and yet they are so many, and written 
by so many persons, that their agreement, through- 
out, is wonderful."* The method pursued by the 
early christians in determining what books had a 
just claim to the character of canonical scriptures, 
was precisely that by which we have been investi- 
gating the same subject. It was not enough, for 
the reception of a writing, that it came to them 
under the name of an apostle, and was considered 
by some as justly entitled to that honour. Its 

* Lardner, ii. 596. 



58 LECTURE III. 

descent was carefully traced. How was it regarded 
by the preceding generation, and by the generation 
before that? Was it known by those who lived 
nearest the time and the person associated with its 
claims ? Had it been received by the churches ; 
referred to and quoted, as possessing canonical 
authority, by christian writers since the period of 
its general publication? Had it been handed down 
by the general and concurrent tradition of the 
church, written and unwritten, as the work of the 
writer whose name it bears ? Such was the mode 
which, we know from the remaining works of 
Irenaeus, Tertullian, Eusebius, Cyril, and Augus- 
tine, &c., was employed in their days, and in all 
times of the primitive church. ** The books of the 
canonical scriptures (says Augustine), established in 
the times of the apostles, and confirmed by the 
testimony of the succession of bishops and churches, 
in all following times, are placed in a peculiar 
degree of authority, to which the judgment and 
understanding of all pious men are subject." 

The numerous catalogues which have descended 
to us from the early centuries, are sufficient evi- 
dence of the care with which the canon of the New 
Testament was settled. In primitive times, when, 
from a variety of causes, spurious books abounded, 
and the distant and scattered churches, incapable of 
much intercourse with those near the centre of 
christian light, were most liable to be deceived, 
these catalogues were of the greatest importance. 
How numerous they must have been, may be, in 
some wise, conceived from the fact that, although a 
very small portion only of the works of the first four 
centuries are extant, there are among them no less 
than thirteen independent catalogues, all of them 
composed by authors scattered over only about one 
hundred and eighty, out of the first four hundred 
years after the birth of Christ. 



LECTURE III. .59 

The same care is seen in the pains that were 
taken to obtain the most exact information as to the 
authenticity of the books bearing apostolic names ; 
as well as from the decisive censure and aversion 
with which an attempt to pass a spurious work upon 
the church was visited. Pious and learned heads 
of the churches used to journey to Palestine, and 
reside there for a considerable length of time, for 
the express object of obtaining whatever valuable 
knowledge might be found there, as to the New 
Testament w^ritings. And of the treatment be- 
stowed upon attempted forgeries, we have an 
example in the case of a certain presbyter of Asia, 
soon after the death of St. John, who published a 
book, which is still extant, under the title of the 
Acts of Paul and Thecla, The attempt at imposi- 
tion was charged upon the author, and confessed. 
Whereupon he was degraded from his office, and 
the whole matter was notified to the churches, that 
they might feel the need of the strictest care there- 
after.* 

The gradual steps by which the books of the 
New Testament were multiplied to their present 
number, afforded the best opportunity for a careful 
and accurate determination of their authenticity. 
Had they all appeared at once, claiming, in their 
collective form, to be received by the churches as 
inspired scripture ; the attention of Christians being 
thus divided among twenty-seven independent writ- 
ings which professed to have been written by eight 
different authors, the diligence of their investiga- 
tion would have been also divided ; its accuracy 
would have been endangered, and the opportunity 
of imposition greatly increased. But such was not 
the case. The books of the New Testament were 
published singly. They came before the churches, 
one by one, with considerable intervals betw^een 

^ Lardner, i. 435. 



60 LECTURE III. 

them, thus giving time for the claims of each to be 
dehberately and singly examined. The Epistle to 
the Romans appeared at the bar of the church in 
the city of Rome, and had its authority as a writ- 
ing of St. Paul determined, without embarrassment 
from any question as to the authenticity of the Epis- 
tle to the Ephesians. The Ephesians received the 
epistle directed to them, and could sit in judgment 
upon its claims, without any necessity of deciding, 
at that time, upon the authenticity of the Epistle tQ. 
the Romans, or Corinthians, or Philippians. Thus 
were there several years between the beginning and 
completion of the canon of the New Testament. 
For a little while, a portion of the church might 
possess an additional book, which a distant region, 
on account of the difficulty of multiplying and 
transmitting copies, would not have received. It 
may have been a period of some years before a 
church in the distant parts of Asia received, and was 
enabled satisfactorily to authenticate the epistle to 
the Romans. Meanwhile the canon of scripture 
might be composed of more books at Rome than 
at the church supposed. 

How long this state of things continued, or when 
precisely the canon was closed, is a question rather 
of curiosity than of im.portance; the authenticity 
and canonical character of any particular book being 
independent of its determination. We know that 
the principal parts of the New Testament were col- 
lected before the death of St John, or, at least, not 
long subsequent to that event. But what individual, 
or what assemblage of persons, collected them; 
where, and precisely when, the work was done, we 
may indulge in plausible conjecture, but cannot 
certainly ascertain. But what connection have such 
matters with the question of apostolic origin ? If 
the Epistle to the Romans, or the Gospel of Matthew, 
was written by the disciple whose name it bears, it 



LECTURE III. 61 

surely matters little when it became the companion 
of other authentic books in the formation of a 
separate volume ; or who arranged its place in that 
volume ; or when an assemblage of christian fathers 
inserted its name in a catalogue, and published it 
to the churches as a canonical writing. It was 
canonical as soon as it was composed. It was a 
part of the New Testament from the moment of its 
birth. Had the books of scripture never been col- 
lected into a volume, but kept in separation, as 
they were first published, to the present time, al- 
though their preservation would have been more 
difficult, their authority would have been the same, 
and the canon of the New Testament, complete. 
Had no father of the church, nor any ecclesiastical 
council, ever issued a declaration of opinion as to 
what writings should be included in the list of 
canonical scriptures, we should have wanted indeed 
much valuable testimony now possessed from such 
sources ; but the essential claim of each inspired 
book to a place in the canon would have remained 
imaltered. To substantiate the title of any por- 
tion of the New Testament to so honourable a place, 
we need only the proof that it was written by the 
apostle or evangelist to whom it is ascribed. For 
this we require the testimony of primitive antiquity. 
So far as the opinion of ancient councils or authors 
is deserving of attention, as a matter of testimony, 
it is of value in the settlement of the canon ; and 
in this view, such opinion is unquestionably of the 
highest importance ; and what we have already ex- 
hibited, of this kind, deserves the greatest consider- 
ation. But the point to be especially noted is, that 
the proof of authenticity in the subject before us, 
is the proof of canonical authority ; that the canon 
began when the first Gospel or Epistle was pub- 
lished ; that it increased with every additional pub- 
lication by inspired men, and was complete and 



62 LECTURE III. 

closed, the moment the last writing of the New Tes- 
tament was issued to the churches ; though at the 
same time but few of them may have been ac- 
quainted with it, no ecclesiastical assembly may 
have sanctioned it, and no union had been made 
with other inspired books, so as to present them to 
the churches as a collection of canonical writings 
under the general name of the New Testament. 

As to the arrangement of these books in a single 
volume, it must have been a work of time, accord- 
ing to the relative situation and intercourse of any 
particular region of Christianity. ** Those churches 
which were situated nearest to the place where any 
particular books were published, would, of course, 
obtain copies much earlier than churches in remote 
parts of the world. For a considerable period, the 
collection of these books in each church must have 
been necessarily incomplete, for it would take some 
time to send to the church or people with whom the 
autographs were deposited, and to write off fair 
copies. This necessary process will also account 
for the fact, that some of the smaller books were 
not received by the churches so early, nor so uni- 
versally, as the larger. The solicitude of the 
churches to possess, immediately, the more exten- 
sive books of the New Testament, would doubtless 
induce them to make a great exertion to acquire 
copies ; but, probably, the smaller would not be so 
much spoken of, nor would there be so strong a 
desire to obtain them without delay. Considering 
how difficult it is now, with all our improvements 
in the typographical art, to multiply copies of the 
scriptures with sufficient rapidity, it is truly won- 
derful how so many churches as were founded during 
the first century, to say nothing of individuals, 
could all be supplied with copies of the New Tes- 
tament, when there was no speedier method of pro- 
ducing them than by writing every letter with the 



LECTURE III. 63 

pen. Even as early as the time when Peter wrote 
his second Epistle, the writings of Paul were in the 
hands of the churches, and were classed with the 
other scriptures.* And the citation from these books 
by the earliest christian writers, living in different 
countries, demonstrates that, from the time of their 
publication, they were sought after with avidity, 
and were widely dispersed/' *' How intense the 
interest which the first Christians felt in the writings 
of the apostles, can scarcely be conceived by us, 
who have been familiar with these books from our 
earliest years. How solicitous would they be, for 
example, who had never seen Paul, but had heard 
of his wonderful conversion and extraordinary la- 
bours and gifts, to read his writings ! And pro- 
bably they who had enjoyed the high privilege of 
hearing this apostle preach, would not be less de- 
sirous of reading his Epistles ! As we know from 
the nature of the case, as well as from testimony, 
that many uncertain accounts of Christ's discourses 
and miracles had obtained circulation, how greatly 
would the primitive Christians rejoice, to obtain an 
authentic history from the pen of an apostle, or 
from one who wrote precisely what was dictated by 
an apostle ! We need no longer wonder, therefore, 
that every church should wish to possess a collection 
of the writings of the apostles ; and knowing them 
to be the productions of inspired men, they would 
want no further sanction of their authority. All 
that was requisite, was to be certain that the book 
was indeed written by the apostle whose name it 
bore.''t Hence the care of St. Paul, as he com- 
monly wrote by an amanuensis, to have the saluta- 
tion in his own hand, or to annex his signature: 
as, for example, in the second Epistle to the Thes- 
salonians : ** The salutation of Paul with mine own 

♦ 2 Peter, iii, 14, 15. 

t Alexander on the Canon, p. 138, &c. 



64 LECTURE III. 

handy which is the token in every Epistle : so I 
write.'' Hence, also, the care so often manifest in 
the Epistles, to designate those by name to whom 
the office of carrying them whither they were ad- 
dressed, was entrusted. 

From the authorities quoted in the previous 
lecture, it must be full in your recollection that 
while the agreement of the ancient churches may be 
considered to have been complete, so far as is im- 
portant to the argument for the divine origin of 
Christianity ; still there was a difference of opinion 
as to the authenticity and canonical authority of the 
Epistle to the HebrewsP; of the Epistle of James ; the 
second of Peter ; the second and third of John ; the 
Epistle of Jude ; and the book of Revelation. This 
diversity was not, by any means, so great or im- 
portant as some suppose. Had it not been for the 
great care and candour of those early christians, 
from whom we learn the fact, it would have seemed 
of too limited an extent, and too inconsiderable in 
its origin, to merit any more than a very transient 
notice in their writings. But we have no reason to 
regret the publicity they have given it. They have 
thus put into our hands a very strong proof of the 
discriminating care and jealous vigilance with which 
the primitive churches investigated the title of any 
book to admission into the canon of the New Testa- 
ment. That some were doubted, though afterwards 
universally acknowledged, exhibits in a very strong 
light the certain authenticity of all those of which 
there was never a question. 

The canonical authority of the six Epistles, above 
named, as well as of the Apocalypse, has no material 
connection with the argument of the ensuing lectures. 
The evidence of the divine origin and revelation of 
Christianity is entirely independent of the question 
of their authenticity. Should we acknowledge them 
to be spurious, no point of christian doctrine or duty 



lECTURE III. 65 

would be removed; no gospel truth would be shaken; 
no evidence of divine revelation would be diminished. 
To vindicate their authenticity cannot, therefore, be 
required of a lecturer on the evidences of Christianity : 
it is the appropriate office of the biblical critic, and 
belongs to discussions on the canon of scripture, 
and to the prolegomena of a commentary, instead of 
the course we are now pursuing. But, lest the 
mere statement of the fact, that doubts were once 
entertained as to the authenticity of these writings, 
should leave on some minds an impression unfavour- 
able to their character, as inspired scriptures, it will 
be well to bestow a moment's attention to the amount 
of importance to which those doubts are justly en- 
titled. 

With regard to the Epistle to the Hebrews, no 
question was entertained as to its being the work af 
St. Paul, among the churches of the earlier cen- 
turies, except those of the Latin christians. The 
fact that the Arian? were the first in the Greek 
churches who are said to have denied that it was 
written by St. Paul, is an important testimony in its 
favour. The objections of the Latins did not pre- 
tend to any ecclesiastical tradition, or any authority 
of earlier churches, in opposition to its Pauline 
origin ; but were based entirely on its internal 
character, and especially on the handle which the 
fourth and fifth verses of the sixth chapter seemed to 
afford the sect of the Montanists, in vindication of 
their prominent doctrine, that those guilty of griev- 
ous transgressions should be irrevocably cut off 
from the church. Hence it was that Jerome and 
Augustine, though of the Latins, could not adopt 
the opinions held by many of their contemporaries, 
being convinced of their incorrectness, by the testi- 
mony of the ancient churches to the authenticity of 
the Epistle. 

It should be remarked, that all those who ques- 



66 LECTURE III. 

tioned the canonical authority of this Epistle, treated 
it with high respect as a christian and very ancient 
writing of the apostolic age, if not by an apostle's 
hand. They ascribed it either to Barnabas or 
Clement. But for this they had no testimony to 
appeal to. On the contrary, the testimony of die 
earliest christian writers is very decidedly for St. 
Paul. The fathers of the Greek church unani- 
mously ascribed it to him. Jerome, of the fourth 
century, testifies that it was received as a produc- 
tion of that apostle, not only by the Eastern 
churches, but by all the Greek ecclesiastical 
writers, '' I receive it (said he) as genuine — 
guided by the authority of the ancient writers.'* 
Eusebius, the historian of the church of the fourth 
century, quotes it as the work of St. Paul, and says 
it had, not without reason, been reckoned among the 
other writings of the apostle. Theodoret positively 
asserts, that Eusebius received this Epistle as St. 
Paul's, and that he manifested that almost all the 
ancients were of the same opinion. Augustine said, 
<* he followed the opinion of the churches of the East, 
who received it among the canonical scriptures." 
Origen, born a.d. 184, expresses his opinion, that 
** it was not without cause that the ancients (i. e. 
the immediate successors of the apostles) regarded 
this as. an Epistle of Paul." The internal evidence 
is decidedly in favour of its having been written by 
that apostle. The salutation from the Jewish 
christians who had been driven out of Italy (Heb. 
xiii. 24.), and the mention of Timothy as his fellow- 
traveller (xiii. 23.), are very applicable to Paul. 
Not only does the general scope of this Epistle tend 
to the same point on which so much stress is laid in 
his other writings, that we are justified only by faith 
in Christ, and that the works and mstitutions of the 
law are of no avail to our salvation ; but there are 
also various propositions found in it, which are 



LECTURE III. 67 

conspicuous in his other works. Tlie same charac- 
teristic warmth and energy of expression appear in 
this as in all writings ascribed in the New Testa- 
ment to the pen of vSt. Paul. Hebraisms abound in 
it as in his other Epistles. It contains particular 
expressions, phrases, and collocations of words, which 
are either peculiar to him, or are most frequent in 
his compositions.* But as this is not the place to 
do justice to a question of so much importance, and 
yet not material to the argument of these lectures, I 
must refer you, for further knowledge and satisfac- 
tion, to the learned and complete work of professor 
Stuart, of Andover, on the Epistle to the Hebrews, 
or to an excellent article in the " Biblical Notes and 
Dissertations,'' recently from the pen of Joseph John 
Gurney, of the society of Friends, in England. 

The Epistle of James, being addressed to Jewish 
believers, was for some time, to a considerable ex- 
tent, unknown to the Gentile christians. While 
this was the case, its authenticity was questioned, 
or rather was not certified among the Gentiles. 
As soon as this ceased to be the case, its authen- 
ticity was undoubted. It is of great importance to 
the character of this Epistle, that in the Syriac 
version, made at the end of the first or the beginning 
of the second century, while the second epistle of 
Peter, the second and third of John, and the Apo- 
calypse, are omitted, the Epistle of James, written 
particularly to the people for whom the version 
was made, is included, and placed on an equality 
with all those books about which there was never 
a question in the church. In proportion as it 
became known among the Gentile christians, it 
passed through a severe and accurate scrutiny, till, 
in a short time, it was universally received, and 
has ever since been universally honoured, as an au- 
thentic and inspired portion of the oracles of God^ 

* Smucker's translation of Storr and Flatt's Bib. Theology. 

F 2 



68 LECTURE III. 

With regard to the remaining Epistles, concerning 
the authenticity of which doubts were for a while 
entertained, it will suffice to remark in this place, 
that the fact of their not having been immediately 
recognised throughout the church as the works of 
the apostles, only shows that the persons who were 
in doubt had not yet received sufficient information 
to make up their judgment ; and that the primitive 
christians, so far from being so greedy after additions 
to the sacred canon as to be easily deceived by a 
plausible pretension to apostolic origin, were ex- 
tremely deliberate and cautious in examining every 
candidate for admission into the catalogue of scrip- 
ture. Such being the case, the subsequent recep- 
tion of these Epistles, as soon as full time was given 
them to be universally circulated and known, is 
perfect proof that they were capable of enduring the 
most trying investigation of their inspired origin, 
and were honoured with a unanimous verdict as the 
genuine writings of those to whom they were 
ascribed, and as part and parcel of the word of 
God. The reader may find abundant satisfaction, 
with regard to them, in Dr. Alexander's excellent 
work on the canon of scripture. 

It has been stated, that at one period doubts were 
entertained in the churches as to the authenticity of 
the book of Revelation. Those doubts imply no 
deficiency of testimony. Until the fourth century, 
the character of this iDOok was undoubted, and its 
authority was universally acknowledged ; only one 
writer questioning whether John the evangelist 
was its author, and even he admitting that it was 
written by inspiration of God. About the com- 
mencement of the fourth century, the Millenarian 
controversy having arisen and distracted the 
churches, and the mysterious character of the book 
having been extensively employed in the support of 
new and extravagant doctrines, its character de- 



LECTURE III. 69 

clined; and without any reference to testimony in 
the case, its authenticity was by some, though by 
no means universally or for a long time, brought 
into question. Thus Eusebius, of that century, 
after having given a catalogue of the books univer- 
sally acknowledged, writes: " After these, if it be 
thought fit, may be placed the Revelation of John, 
concerning which we shall observe the different 
opinions at a proper time." And in another place : 
'* There are, concerning this book, different opi- 
nions." " This is the first doubt expressed by any 
respectable writer, concerning the canonical au- 
thority of this book; and Eusebius did not reject 
it, but would have placed it next after those which 
were received with universal consent. And we find, 
at this very time, the most learned and judicious of 
the fathers received the Revelation without scruple, 
and annexed it to their catalogues of the books of 
the New Testament."* It is of no small importance, 
that a book so full of evidence against the heresies 
of the celebrated Dr. Priestley, should have received 
from his pen the following testimony : " This book 
of Revelation, I have no doubt, was written by the 
apostle John. Sir Isaac Newton, with great truth, 
says, he does not find any other hook of the New 
Testament so strongly attested, or commented upon 
so early as this. Indeed, I think it impossible for 
any intelligent and candid person to peruse it 
without being struck, in the most forcible manner, 
with the peculiar dignity and sublimity of its 
composition, superior to that of any other writing 
whatever; so as to be convinced that, considering 
the age in which it appeared, none but a person 
divinely inspired could have written it."t It is 
true, and at first may seem surprising, that while a 
majority of the ancient catalogues contain this book, 

* Alexander on the Canon. 

t Priestley's Notes on Scripture. 



70 LECTURE 11 r. 

there are many in which it is omitted ; though it 
is known that the authors of some of these ac- 
knowledged its authenticity. The omissions are 
satisfactorily explained by the consideration that 
the object of these catalogues was the guidance of 
the people in reading the scriptures ; and since 
the mysteriousness of this book, and the use made 
of it, on the side of the Millenarian errors, when 
the catalogues were chiefly composed, seemed to 
render it inexpedient that it should be as generally 
read as the other scriptures, its name was excluded 
from several lists of books for universal use, with- 
out any intention of pronouncing upon its canonical 
character. 

Having now exhibited satisfactory evidence of 
the authenticity of all the books of the New Tes- 
tament, be it remarked that, while every part of 
the sacred volume is of inspired authority, and 
therefore of such importance as that no man can 
take away from it, or add unto it, without heinous 
offence against God; still the argument for the 
divine mission of Jesus, and for the divine origin of 
Christianity, depends chiefly upon the historical por- 
tions^ and would exhibit no deficiency, were no at- 
tention paid to the authenticity of the others. In 
what remains to be said, by way of addition to the 
various and unequalled evidence already adduced, 
we shall have a view^ particularly to the Gospels and 
Acts of the Apostles. 

The testimony of the adversaries of Christianity, 
It may be said, with some appearance of a plau- 
sible objection to the testimony hitherto produced, 
that it is all derived, either from the devoted friends 
of the gospel, or else from those who professed to 
be its disciples. Is there no testimony from ene- 
mies ? The books of the New Testament were 
widely circulated ; christian advocates, in their con- 
troversies with the heathen, freely appealed to them; 



LECTURE III. 71 

heathens, in their works of attack and defence, 
must have spoken of them. In what light did they 
regard them ? Did they ascribe them to their re- 
puted authors, or question their authenticity ? Now, 
we do not grant that the testimony already produced 
is justly liable to the least disparagement on account 
of its having been derived exclusively from the 
friends of Christ. That certain ancients believed 
the facts contained in Caesars Commentaries has 
never been supposed to diminish the value of their 
testimony to the authenticity of that work. We will 
take occasion, by and by, to show that the very fact 
that an early witness to the New Testament history 
was not an enemy, but a friend, of the gospel, and 
had become a friend from having been once an 
enemy, is just the ingredient in his testimony that 
gives it peculiar conclusiveness. Still, however, we 
are under no temptation to undervalue the import- 
ance of an appeal to the opinions of adversaries. 
Let us inquire of enemies as well as friends — and 
first of Julian, 

Julian, the emperor, united intelligence, learning, 
and power, with a persecuting zeal, in a resolute 
effort to root out Christianity. In the year 361, he 
composed a work against its claims. We may be 
well assured, that if any thing could have been 
said against the authenticity of its books, he would 
have used it. His work is not extant ; but from 
long extracts, found in the answer by Cyril, a few 
years after, as well as from the statements of his 
opinions and arguments by this writer, it is unques- 
tionable that Julian bore witness to the authenticity 
of the four Gospels, and of the Acts of the Apostles, 
He concedes, and argues from, their early date ; 
quotes them by name, as the genuine works of their 
reputed authors ; proceeds upon the supposition, 
as a thing undeniable, that they were the only his- 
torical books which Christians received as canonical 



72 LECTURE 111. 

: — the only authentic narratives of Christ and his 
apostles, and of the doctrine they delivered. He 
has also quoted, or plainly referred to, the Epistles 
to the Romans, Corinthians, and Galatians, and no- 
where insinuates that the authenticity of any portion 
of the New Testament could reasonably be ques- 
tioned.* Let us ascend a little higher. 

Hierocles, president of Bithynia, and a learned 
man, of about the year 303, united, to a cruel 
persecution of Christians, the publication of a book 
against Christianity, in which, instead of issuing 
even the least suspicion that the New Testament was 
^ot written by those to whom its several parts were 
ascribed, he confines his efforts to the search of in- 
ternal flaws and contradictions. Beside this tacit 
acknowledgment, his work, or the extracts of it that 
remain, refer to, at least, six out of the eight 
writers of the books of the New Testament.f Let 
us ascend still higher. 

Porphyry, universally allowed to have been the 
most severe and formidable adversary, in all primi- 
tive antiquity, wrote, about the year 270, a work 
against Christianity. It is evident that he was well 
acquainted with the New Testament. In the little 
that has been preserved of his writings, there are 
plain references to the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, 
and John, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Epistle 
to the Galatians.I Speaking of Christians, he calls 
Matthew their evangelist. '' He possessed every 
advantage which natural abilities or political situa- 
tion could afford, to discover whether the New Tes- 
tament was a genuine work of the apostles and 
evangelists, or whether it was imposed upon the 
world after the decease of its pretended authors. 
But no trace of this suspicion is any where to be 
found; nor did it ever occur to Porphyry to sup- 

♦ Lardner, iv. 841. t Ib.iv. 269. :j: lb. iv. 234. 



LliCTUREIlI. 73 

pose that it was spurious."* How well this inge- 
nious writer understood the value of an argument 
against the authenticity of a book of scripture, and 
liow greedily he would have enlisted it in his war 
against Christianity, could he have found such a 
weapon, is evident from his well-known effort to 
escape the prophetic inspiration of the book of 
Daniel, by denying that it was written in the times 
of that prophet. We may ascend still higher. 

Celsus, esteemed a man of learning among the 
ancients, and a wonderful philosopher among mo- 
dern infidels, wrote a laboured argument against the 
Christians. He flourished in the year 176, or about 
seventy-six years after the death of St, John, 
None ' can accuse him of a want of zeal to ruin 
Christianity. None can complain against his testi- 
mony, as deficient in antiquity. An industrious, 
ingenious, learned adversary of that age, must have 
known whatever was suspicious in the authorship 
of the New Testament writings. His book, entitled 
** The True Word,*' is unhappily lost; but in the 
answer, composed by Origen, the extracts from it 
are so large, that it is difficult to find, of any ancient 
book not extant, more extensive remains. The 
author quotes, from the Gospels, such a variety of 
particulars, even in these fragments, that the enu- 
meration would prove almost an abridgment of the 
Gospel narrative. t Origen has noticed in them 
about eighty quotations from the books of the New 
Testament, or references to them. Among these 
there is abundant evidence that Celsus was ac- 
quainted with the Gospels of Matthew, Luke, and 
John. Several of Paul's Epistles are alluded to. 
His whole argument proceeds upon the concession 
that the christian scriptures were the works of the 
authors to whom they were ascribed. Such a thing 

* Marsh's Michaelis, i. 43. 

t Doddridge, in Lardner, iv. 145 and 147. 



74 LECTURE III. 

as a suspicion to the contrary, is not breathed ; 
and yet no man ever wrote against Christianity with 
greater virulence. Hence it appears, '* by the testi- 
mony of one of the most malicious adversaries the 
christian religion ever had, and who was also a man 
of considerable parts and learning, that the writings 
of the evangelists were extant in his time, which was 
the next century to that in which the apostles lived ; 
and that those accounts were written by Christ*s 
own disciples, and consequently in the very age in 
which the facts, there related, were done ; and 
when, therefore, it would have been the easiest thing 
in the world to have convicted them of falsehood, 
if they had not been true/'* *' Who can forbear 
(says the devout Doddridge) adoring the depth of 
Divine wisdom, in laying up such a firm foundation 
of our faith in the gospel history, in the writings 
of one who was so inveterate an enemy to it, and 
so indefatigable in his attempts to overthrow it."t 
Who, I will add, can help the acknowledgment, 
that in Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, and Julian, all 
of them learned controversialists, as well as devoted 
opponents and persecutors of Christians, extending 
their testimony, from the seventieth year after the 
last of the apostles, to the year of our Lord 361 — 
every reasonable demand for the testimony of ene- 
mies is fully met, and a gracious Providence has per- 
fected the external evidence for the authenticity of 
the New Testament ? 

We proceed to confirm the abound mg proof, 
already adduced, by a brief reference to the lan- 
guage and style of the New Testament, 

1. The language and style are in perfect accord- 
ance with the local and other circumstances of the 
reputed writers. They were Jews by birth ; Jews 

* Answer to " Christianity as Old as the Creation," by 
Leland, vol. ii. c. v. p. 150 — 154. 

t Doddridge, in Lardner, iv. 147. 



LECTURE III. 75 

by education ; Jews by numerous and strong at- 
tachments ; Jews in all their associations of thought 
and feeling. Jews were, in great part, the persons 
to whom they wrote. Jewish prejudices, objections, 
and peculiarities were, to a great extent, the ob- 
stacles in their way. The religious and political 
institutions of the Jewish nation, though perfectly 
exterminated in a few years after they were wrote, 
were in full establishment till after the death of all of 
them, except St. John. Hence it is reasonably ex- 
pected that Jewish peculiarities should be found 
frequently and broadly stamped upon any writings 
truly professing to have proceeded from their pens. 
Such, notoriously, is the case with the writings of 
the New Testament. None but Jews could have 
composed them. None but Jews who lived before 
the destruction of their temple,. and city, and polity, 
and nation, could have cast them in their present 
mould, or marked them with all those indescriba- 
ble and inimitable touches of a Jewish hand, which 
their style and language every where exhibit. The 
use of words and phrases which are known to have 
been peculiar to Judea in the times of the apostles ; 
the continual, familiar, and natural allusions to the 
ceremonies and temple service of the Jews, as then 
existing, and which soon passed away ; the uni- 
versal prevalence of a mode of thinking and of ex- 
pression, which none but a Jew, brought up under 
the Old Testament, always accustomed to think of 
religion through the types and shadows of the law, 
and reared amidst the usages, prejudices, associa- 
tions, and errors of the Jewish people, as subsisting 
in the times of the apostles, could have introduced 
without awkwardness and obvious forgery ; all bear 
decided witness, not only that the writers of the 
New Testament were Jews originally, in every sense, 
but that they must have formed their habits of think- 
ing, feeling, and writing, before the destruction oj 



76 LECTURE III. 

the Jewish state; in other words, before the fortieth 
year after the death of Christ. From that time, so 
entirely was every vestige of the rehgion and poh'ty 
of the Jews destroyed, that, except among those 
whose minds had been moulded under pre-existing 
circumstances, the writing of a book in the language 
and style, and abounding in the peculiarities, of the 
New Testament, would have been, at least, next to 
impossible. 

This conclusion will appear the more inevitable, 
when you consider the characteristic features by 
which the Greek of the New Testament is distin- 
guished. In the times of the apostles, Greek was 
almost a universal language. It was spread over 
all Palestine. The Jewish coast, on the Medi- 
terranean, was occupied by cities, either wholly, or 
half Greek. On the eastern border of the land, 
from the Arnon upwards, towards the north, the 
cities were Greek ; and towards the south, in pos- 
session of the Greeks. Several cities of Judea and 
Galilee were either entirely, or, at least, half 
peopled by Greeks, '' Being thus favoured on all 
sides, this language was spread, by means of traffic 
and intercourse, through all classes, so that the 
people, (though with many exceptions), considered 
generally, understood it, although they adhered 
more to their own language.'^* But the Greek, 
thus spoken in Palestine, was not like that of 
Attica, nor of the cities of Asia Minor ; but having 
become degenerated, in consequence of its associa- 
tions with people whose native tongue was Hebrew, 
by means of Chaldee and Syriac intermixtures, into 
Western Aramean, it contained a large share of the 
idioms and other peculiarities belonging to this 
heterogeneous neighbour. Such was the language 
in which the apostles must have written. Now, if 

* Hu?j on the Greek languages in Palestine.— iJi^. Repo- 
ntory^ No. III. Andover. 



LECTURE III. 77 

the books of the New Testament be their writings^ 
they must contain the characteristic features of that 
Palestine Greek. Such is most manifestly the case. 
These books are in Greek, but not pure and classic, 
such as a native and educated Grecian would have 
written ; but in Hebraic Greek ; in a language 
mixed up with the words and idioms of that peculiar 
dialect of the Hebrew which constituted the verna- 
cular tongue of the inhabitants of Judea and Galilee 
in the age of the apostles. Had it been otherwise ; 
were the language of the New Testament pure and 
classic ; then the writers must have been either 
native and educated Grecians, or else Jews, of 
much more Attic cultivation than the apostles of 
Christ. In either case, a suspicion would attach to 
the authenticity of our sacred books. Neither case 
being true, the evidence of authenticity is materially 
confirmed. 

But we go further. The Greek of the New 
Testament could not have been written by men who 
had learned their language after the age of the 
apostles. This mingling of Grecian and Aramean, 
as it is preserved in the New Testament, ceased to 
be the familiar tongue of christians in Palestine 
before the death of St. John. When Jerusalem, 
with the whole civil and religious polity of the Jews, 
was, in the seventieth year of the christian era, 
entirely destroyed, and the descendants of Abraham 
were rooted out of the land, and foreigners came in 
from all quarters to take their places, the language 
of the country underwent such a change, that, except 
with the scattered few who had survived the desola- 
tion of their country, the Greek of the New Testa- 
ment was no more a living language. When St. 
John died, there was probably not a man alive who 
could speak or write precisely that tongue. In the 
second century, an attempt to compose a book in 
the name of the apostles, and in imitation of their 



78 LECTURE III. 

Greek, would have been detected as easily as if a 
full-bred Frenchman, never out of France, should 
attempt to compose a volume in a dialect of English, 
and endeavour to pass it off as the work of a plain, 
sensible, but unpolished Yorkshireman. Hence, 
while doubts were entertained for a while, in some 
parts of the church, as to the authenticity of some 
portions of the New Testament, it was never doubted 
whether they were written by men who had lived 
when the Greek of Palestine, as it had been in the 
apostolic age, was yet alive. 

II. The language and style of the New Testament 
are in perfect harmony with the known characters of 
the reputed writers. The apostles and evangelists 
were men of plain, sound understanding, but with- 
out any polish of education, and not likely to adorn 
their writings with much rhetorical dress. Paul, 
the only exception to this character, was well read 
in Jewish, and, we have reason to believe, in Grecian 
literature. From other sources, besides the New 
Testament, we are informed of certain peculiarities 
of natural character, as having distinguished some of 
those to whom the books of the New Testament are 
ascribed. John, for example, is always represented 
in ecclesiastical history as having been remarkable 
for meekness, and gentleness, and a manner and 
spirit full of mild affection. Paul, we always read 
of as characterized by prompt energetic zeal, and 
animated boldness. If the books bearing their 
names were written by those apostles, we must 
expect to find in them the distinctive stamp of their 
respective characters. So it is. In the historical 
books, none of which the educated Paul composed, 
there is no ornament of style ; but merely the 
simplicity, and directness, of plain, sensible men, 
honestly relating what they familiarly knew, and 
disregarding style in their intentness upon truth. 
In the epistles of Paul, however, the case is entirely 



LECTURE III. 79 

different. There we behold the style of a writer 
brought up in the schools, though obviously in the 
schools of Judea. Accustomed to writing and to 
argument, he reasons precisely as we should expect 
of Saul of Tarsus, after having been educated at 
the feet of Gamaliel, and arrested by divine power 
and grace on the road to Damascus, and made to 
** count all things but loss for the excellency of the 
knowledge of Christ," Every where, in the epistles 
bearing, his name, are written the strong characters 
of the peculiar zeal and boldness, as well as edu- 
cation, that belonged to Paul; while throughout 
the writings ascribed to John, there breathes the 
sweet spirit of gentleness and tender affection, so 
characteristic of '' that disciple whom Jesus loved.'' 
Similar statements might be made with regard to 
other writers of the New Testament, in proportion as 
their peculiarities of temperament are known and 
conspicuous. 

From all that has now been said, it may easily 
be made to appear, that if the historical books of 
the New Testament, the Gospels and Acts of the 
Apostles, on which our subsequent argument will 
chiefly depend, be not authentic ; in plainer terms, 
if they be forgeries, nothing less than a miracle 
can account for their early and universal currency. 
Remember that John lived to the end of the first 
century. It cannot be supposed that books, falsely 
pretending to have been written by those very evan- 
gelists with whom he had been so intimately asso- 
ciated, and one of them professing to have been 
written by himself, could have gained a reputable 
currency in the churches while he lived. He cer- 
tainly knew what he and the other evangelists had 
published ; and no motive can be assigned that 
could have induced him to suffer a forgery to pass 
unexposed. We conclude, therefore, that if these 
books be not authentic, they must have been palmed 



80 LECTURE III. 

on the churches after the death of John ; that is, 
after the beginnuig of the second century. Suppose 
we descend to the third. Can it be imagined that 
the deception was introduced after this century 
commenced ? Impossible ; since by this time, the 
books in question were read, every Lord's day, in 
all the churches ; quoted by writers of all coun- 
tries ; universally received as the oracles of God. 
If a deception was introduced at all, it was brought 
in somewhere between the death of John and the 
third century— somewhere in the course of the second. 
Now, to obtain a clearer view of the difficulties 
which such an attempt must have had to overcome, 
let it be supposed, that during the present year, a 
volume, containing a digest of laws, under the title 
of " Laws of the City of New York,*' should appear 
among us, pretending to be a code of municipal 
regulations, composed, about seventy years ago, by 
a few of the most distinguished inhabitants at that 
period ; and to have been received by the citizens, 
and appealed to in their municipal . courts ever 
since, as the book of the laws of this city ; claim- 
ing, moreover, to be acknowledged and obeyed by 
the present generation as the very code inherited 
from their fathers. What would be its chance? 
A moral impossibility would prevent its success. 
Nothing but lunacy would undertake such a scheme. 
It would be enough for lawyers, and judges, and 
people to say: '*It was never heard of before. 
It has never been known in our courts." But this 
is only a feeble illustration of the case before us. 
If the books in question were forged in the name 
of the evangelists, you must suppose, that at some 
period, within a hundred years of St. John, while 
many were living who had either known him per- 
sonally, or conversed with those who did enjoy that 
privilege, a volume appeared among the churches, 
differing widely from those books which, as works 



LECTURE III. 81 

of the evangelists, they had received and read from 
the beginning, and yet demanding to be considered 
as nothing more nor less than those very works. 
You must suppose the abettors of the imposition to 
have said to the various nations of Christians, 
'' These are the genuine Gospels in which you were 
educated ; which your fathers died for ; which 
your persecutors endeavoured to destroy, and your 
martyrs laboured to saves which have been daily 
read in your families, expounded in your churches, 
quoted in your writings, and appealed to in all your 
controversies with heretics and enemies." And yet 
It must be supposed that Christians, notwithstanding 
their notorious love for the writings of the evange- 
lists, and their great care in preserving them, were 
so easily and universally imposed on, as never to 
perceive that these fraudulent works, instead of 
having been expounded, and read, and quoted, and 
appealed to in all their churches, had never been 
heard of before. You have to suppose, moreover, 
that while Christianity was surrounded on all sides, 
and opposed at every step by keen-sighted and de- 
termined enemies — Jews, on the one hand, with all 
their cunning— Greeks and Romans on the other, 
with all their skill and power, ever watching, ac- 
cusing, and persecuting — none of them ever pre- 
tended to the discovery, that these books, so frau- 
dulently introduced, were not those which the 
apostles wrote, and Christians had always read ; but 
all believed them to be the identical writings to 
which the churches had invariably referred as the 
law and the testimony. 

You must go still further, and suppose that not- 
withstanding the wide publicity which the genuine 
works of the apostles had obtained among the pri- 
mitive churches, so immediately did these spurious 
productions expel them from the notice and recol- 
lection of all people, thai no interval is known 

G 



82 LECTURE III. 

during which the question between the two con- 
flicting volumes was so much as even debated. In- 
stantly, (you must suppose), that the spurious were 
treated every where with the reverence belonging to 
inspired books ; that, though divers sects of heresies 
were starting up in various parts, all recognized 
their authority; that the churches of Rome, Corinth, 
Ephesus, Colosse, Philippi, Galatia, and Thessalo- 
nica, all believed that these several epistles, falsely 
pretending to have come to them from St. Paul, 
were those very ones, the autographs of which were 
then in their possession, and copies of which they 
had been continually reading in public from the 
time the originals were received from the apostle. 
Lastly, it must be supposed, that so perfect was the 
forgery, that although every weapon and artifice that 
wit, and learning, and power, could contrive, has 
been employed, during eighteen hundred years, for 
the single purpose of undermining the foundations 
of Christianity, no labourer in the cause has yet 
succeeded in detecting a flaw in the authenticity of 
its books. He that can digest all this, for the pur- 
pose of maintaining that our sacred writings are not 
authentic, can swallow the most abject absurdity. 
He supposes an endless succession of miracles 
wrought upon innumerable minds for the promotion 
of imposture. He believes the laws of nature to 
have been continually violated, under the govern- 
ment of a holy God, to countenance unrighteous- 
ness. In sustaining this belief, he. must adopt a 
principle with regard to miracles, the boldness and 
novelty of which, even Hume would have been jea- 
lous of. He was so modest as only to maintain, 
that no testimony can prove a miracle. Here, how- 
ever, the sceptic must maintain that the most absurd 
miracle can be proved, not only without any tes- 
timony, but against all testimony. 

Enough has now been said to enable you to judge 



LECTURE rii. 83 

whether the learning, or the honesty of the miser- 
able Paine is most to be admired, when he says : 
*^ Those who are not much acquainted with eccle- 
siastical history, may suppose that the book called 
the New Testament has existed ever since the time 
of Jesus Christ ; but the fact is historically other- 
wise. There was no such book as the New Testa- 
tament till more than three hundred years after the 
time that Christ is said to have lived:' Whether 
we ought to save this poor sceptic from the charge 
of a gross and deliberate falsehood, by imputing to 
him disgraceful ignorance, I leave you to decide. 

And now, having maintained our cause, permit 
me to say, that, in argument with unbelievers, we 
cannot, in justice, be required to present any of the 
evidence to which you have been listening. The 
whole burden of proof lies with the objector. Should 
the authenticity of Paradise Lost be called in ques- 
tion, no believer in its Miltonian origin would feel 
himself called upon to prove it. We should wait 
in calmness, till the sceptic had sustained his objec- 
tion. The book has lived long enough with a fair 
reputation, to be considered authentic till proved to 
be spurious. So would common justice warrant 
us in saying, with regard to the New Testament. 
Eighteen centuries of high and holy reputation are 
enough to sustain its authenticity, till sceptics, be- 
sides pronouncing, shall prove it a forgery. Let the 
objector be kind enough to state the proof of its 
spuriousness ; let him show the deficiencies in its 
evidence; let him establish objections to its legi- 
timacy, which all the enemies which surrounded its 
birth were unable to venture ; then will it be time 
for friends to stand on the defensive, and prove its 
apostolic parentage. But this we know not that any 
opposer of Christianity ever pretended to accomplish. 
How these books were forced upon the world ; when 
christians were so asleep as not to perceive that 

G 2 



84 LECTURE III. 

they were not the books which they had always been 
reading, and consulting, and expounding, and 
loving, and suffering for ; when the enemies of 
christians were so miraculously blinded, and the den 
of lions, in which the church for so many centuries 
existed, was so miraculously hushed and overruled, 
that such an imposture could gain admission, and 
dwell in universal quietness, without so much as one 
paw to pounce on the prey, or one vigilant foe to 
discover its existence — what is the evidence that 
such an event ever took place ; I never heard of a 
human being undertaking to show. You might as 
well pretend to prove that the Declaration of Inde- 
pendence, circulated in numberless copies through 
this country, is not authentic ; that our revolu- 
tionary fathers published no such document, or else, 
that ours is not the declaration which they pub- 
lished. The adversaries of Christianity are wary. It 
would require 'learning, and time, and talents, to 
make even a plausible show of strength, in conflict 
with the testimony to the authenticity of the New 
Testament ; but it takes no time, requires no talent, 
or knowledge, for such persons to insinuate that its 
books are forgeries — to put out a wise suspicion that 
they were not written by the original disciples. No 
argument can refute a sneer, nor any human skill 
prevent its mischief. They know that many a mind 
will catch the plague of infidelity by the touch of 
their insinuation, without ever finding, or caring to 
seek, the antidote. Any body can soil the repute 
of an individual, however pure and chaste, by utter- 
ing a suspicion, which his enemies will believe, and 
his friends never hear of. A puff of idle wind can 
take up a million of the seeds of the thistle, and do 
a work of mischief which the husbandman must 
labour long and hard to undo ; the floating par- 
ticles being too trifling to be seen, and too light to 
be stopped. Such are the seeds of infidelity — so 



LECTURE III. 85 

easily sown — so difficult to be gathered up, and yet 
so pernicious in their fruits. It is the work of God, 
much more than of man, that they do not spread 
more rapidly and widely. The hand of Divine 
Providence interposes to arrest it, where the regular 
array of human reasoning would have no room to 
use its strength. 

Here we should leave the subject, were it not that 
one question of importance remains to be answered. 
How do we know that the New Testament has pre- 
served its integrity ? While it appears so conclu- 
sively that our present books are verily those which 
the evangelists and apostles wrote, and the primitive 
churches loved and read ; how does it appear that 
they have undergone no material alteration since 
those times ? On this head, the answer is complete. 

We may reason from the pe'^^fect impossibility of 
any material alteration. The scriptures, as soon as 
written, were published. Christians eagerly sought 
for them ; copies were multiplied ; carried into dis- 
tant countries ; esteemed a sacred treasure, for 
which the disciples were willing to die. They were 
daily read in families, and expounded in churches ; 
writers quoted them ; enemies attacked them ; 
heretics endeavoured to elude their decisions ; and 
the orthodox were vigilant, lest the former, in their 
efforts to escape the interpretation, should change 
the text. In a short time, copies were scattered 
over the whole inhabited portion of the earth. 
Versions were made into different languages. Har- 
monies, and collations, and commentaries, and 
catalogues, were carefully made and published. 
Thus universal notoriety, among friends and ene- 
mies, was given to every book. How, in such 
circumstances, could material alterations be made 
without exposure ? If made in one copy, they must 
have been made universally ; or else some unaltered 
copies would have descended to us, or would have 



86 LECTURE III. 

been taken notice of and quoted in ecclesiastical 
history, and the writings of ancient times. If made 
universally, the work must have been done either by 
friends, or by heretics, or by open enemies. Is it 
supposable that open enemies, unnoticed by Chris- 
tians, could have altered all or a hundredth part of 
the copies, when they were so continually read, and 
so affectionately protected ? Could the sects of 
heretics have done such a work, when they were 
ever watching one another as jealously, as all their 
doings were continually watched by the churches ? 
Could true christians have accomplished such a 
task, even if any motive could have led them to 
desire it, while heretics on one hand, and innumer- 
able enemies on the other, were always awake and 
watchful, with the scriptures in their hands, to lay 
hold of the least pretext against the defenders of the 
faith? It was at least as unlikely that material 
alterations in the New Testament should pass 
unnoticed and become universal, in the early cen- 
turies and in all succeeding ones, as that an import- 
ant change in a copy of the constitution of the 
United States should creep into all the copies 
scattered over the country, and be handed down 
as part of the original document, unnoticed by the 
va^rious parties and jealousies by which that in- 
strument is so closely watched, and so constantly 
referred to. Such was the precise assertion of a 
writer of the fourth century, on this very subject. 
** The integrity (says Augustine) of the books of 
any one bishop, however eminent, cannot be so 
completely kept as that of the canonical scripture, 
translated into so many languages, and kept by the 
people of every age ; and yet some there have been, 
who have forged writings with the names of apostles. 
In vain, indeed, because that scripture has been so 
esteemed, so celebrated, so known."* Reasoning 

* Lardner, ii. 594. 



LECTURE III. 87 

with a heretic, he says : '^ If any one should charge 
you with having interpolated some texts alleged by 
you, would you not immediately answer, that it is 
impossible for you to do such a thing in books read 
by all christians? And that if any such attempt had 
been made by you, it would have been presently 
discerned and defeated by comparing the ancient 
copies ? Well, then, for the same reason that the 
scriptures cannot be corrupted by you, neither could 
they'be corrupted by any other people/'* 

The agreement among the existing manuscripts 
of the New Testament, proves that this holy volume 
has not been corrupted. Of no ancient classic are 
the extant manuscripts so numerous, as those of the 
New Testament. Griesbach, in making his edition, 
collated more than three hundred and fifty. These 
were written in different ages and countries. Some 
of them are as old as the fourth or fifth century. 
Some contain all, others only particular books, or 
parts of books, of the New Testament. Several 
contain detached portions or lessons, as appointed to 
be read on certain occasions in the churches. In 
none of them have we any thing differing in 
essential points from the text at present received. 
It is true, and it sounds to uninformed ears quite 
alarming, that in the manuscripts collated for 
Griesbach's edition of the New Testament, as many 
as one hundred and fifty thousand various readings 
are said to have been found. But all alarm will 
seem gratuitous, when it is known that not one in a 
thousand of these various readings makes any 
perceptible, or, at most, any important, variation of * 
meaning; that they consist almost entirely in mani- 
fest mistakes of transcribers, such as the omissioa 
or transposition of letters, errors in pointing, in 
grammar, in the use of certain words instead of! 
others of similar meaning, and in changing the 

* Lardner, ii. 228. 



88 LECTURE III. 

position of words in a sentence. The very worst 
manuscript, were it our only copy of the New 
Testament, would not shake or pervert one christian 
doctrine or precept. By all the omissions and all the 
additions contained in all the manuscripts, no fact, 
no doctrine, no duty, presented in our authorized 
version, is rendered either obscure or doubtful. The 
diversity of readings is ample proof that our present 
manuscripts were made from various copies in ancient 
times ; while the inconsiderable importance of this 
diversity of readings shows how nearly those copies 
conformed to the original scriptures, and how little 
difference would be seen between our present New 
Testament and the autographs of its writers, could 
they be now collated. No ancient book has pre- 
served its text so uncorrupt as those of the New 
Testament. None is attended with so many means 
of detecting an inaccurate reading. A common 
reader, could he compare the various manuscripts, 
would be sensible of no more difference among them 
than among the several copies of his English Bible, 
which have been printed during the last two hun- 
dred years. 

The uncorrupt preservation of the text of the New 
Testament is also evident from its agreement with 
the nitmeroiis quotations in the ivorks of early chris- 
tian writers^ and with those ancient translations 
which are noio extant. In the remaining books of 
the fathers of the first three centuries, quotations 
from the New Testament are so abundant, that 
almost the whole of the sacred text could be gathered 
from those sources. Excepting some six or seven 
verses, the genuineness of which is not perfectly set- 
tled, there is an exact agreement, in all material 
respects, between those quotations and the corre- 
sponding parts of our New Testament. The same 
confirmation, though still more satisfactory, is derived 
from ancient versions. We possess, in various lun- 



LECTURE III. 89 

guages, versions of the New Testament, reaching as 
far back as the early part of the second century. 
The Mseso-Gothic version, discovered by Mai, in 1 8 1 7, 
and made by Ulphilas, bishop of the Mseso-Goths, 
in the year 370, of which only fragments were pos- 
sessed before, has the same text as ours. The old 
Syriac version, called Peshito, is considered by some 
of the best Syriac scholars to have been made before 
the close of the first century. It was certainly in 
existence, and general use, before the close of the 
second. Though never brought into contact with 
our copies of the New Testament, because not known 
in Europe till the sixteenth century ; though handed 
down by a line of tradition perfectly independent of, 
and unknown to, that by which our Greek Testament 
was received ; yet, when the two came to be com- 
pared, the text of the one was almost an exact ver- 
sion of the text of the other. The difference was 
altogether unimportant. So clearly and impressively 
has Divine Providence attested the integrity of our 
beloved scriptures. 

It is now high time we should relieve your atten- 
tion. You will allow me to proceed, in the subse- 
quent lectures, on the belief that the authenticity 
and integrity of the New Testament have been satis- 
factorily proved. But let us not separate without 
acknowledging, in thankfulness of heart, our debt of 
gratitude to Him who, on a subject of such unspeak- 
able importance, has given us such abundant reason 
for complete conviction. He has made the great 
truth, for which we have been contending, like *' the 
round world, so sure that it cannot be moved,'* 



90 LECTURE IV. 

LECTURE IV. 

CREDIBILITY OF THE GOSPEL HISTORY. 

In the last two lectures, our attention was occupied 
with the authenticity and integrity of the New 
Testament.. A body of proof was presented, of such 
variety and conclusiveness, as should cause us to 
feel that, in taking these important points for 
granted in our subsequent course, we assume 
nothing which every candid mind should not ac- 
knowledge to have been satisfactorily established. 
You will allow me, therefore, to treat the books of 
the New Testament as needing no further argument 
to prove that they were written in the age to which 
they are ascribed, and by the authors whose names 
they bear. 

But it should be remembered, that a book may be 
authentic, and yet not credible. It may have been 
written indeed by the reputed author, and yet tis 
narrative may not be worthy of confidence. This, I 
say, is a possible case. Examples illustrating it are 
not numerous. So generally do authentic histories 
prove to be true, that when we have ascertained a 
book to have been composed by the individual 
whose name is on it, we have a strong presumptive 
argument for the truth of all the conspicuous and 
important features in its narrative. But, inasmuch 
as these two things are not always associated, an 
important question remains to.be determined, before 
we can open the New Testament as the hook of the 
life and religion of the Lord Jesus Christ, and 
worthy of entire reliance, as an account of what was 
done and taught by himself and his apostles. Does 
the New Testament contain a true history of events 
connected with the ministry of Jesus and his 
primitive disciples, so that we may receive as 
historically accurate, whatever is related therein? 



LECTURE IV. 9l 

This refers to what is usually called the credibility 
of the Gospel history^ and expresses the subject of 
our present lecture. 

But, lest the bearing of my remarks should not 
be distinctly understood, I will endeavour to state 
the subject still more precisely. Observe, then; it is 
not the inspiration of the Gospel history, or that it 
was written by holy men as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost, that we shall seek to prove this even- 
ing ; nor that it contains a revelation from God ; nor 
that its doctrines are true ; nor that any of its facts 
were miraculous ; these are subjects which it would 
be premature to introduce at present. All at which 
we now aim, is to furnish conclusive evidence that 
the Gospel history is true, in the same sense as 
Marshall's Life of Washington is true — that what it 
relates, as matter of fact, is worthy of entire reliance 
as matter of fact, independently of all inferences or 
doctrines with which it may be connected. 

Hoio do we prove the credibility of the Gospel 
history ? I answer : Precisely as you would ascer- 
tain the credibility of any other history. Though, 
as in the case of authenticity, we are ready to 
produce a variety and an abundance of evidence, 
far exceeding what the best established and the 
most unquestionable books of ancient profane history 
can pretend to, still the nature of the evidence is 
the same in one case as the other. The fact that 
one history is called sacred, and the other profane ; 
that in one book, the actions of a holy and extra- 
ordinary philanthropist, named Jesus, are related; 
and in another, the actions of a wicked and extra- 
ordinary manslayer, named Csesar, are related ; occa- 
sions not the least difference in the nature of the 
evidence by which the credibility of both must be 
ascertained. 

Here it would be perfectly safe and reasonable to 
rest the question of credibility upon the proof 



92 LECTURE IV. 

arrived at in the last lecture. Although it does not 
follow, in all cases, that to prove a book authentic, 
is to prove it credible also, with regard to its 
principal events ; yet in the case before us, the fact 
that the books of the New Testament were written 
in the first century of Christianity, and by the 
apostles and original disciples of Christ, is com- 
plete evidence that, in respect to the main events of 
the Gospel history, they are true. If one should 
write a romance, calling it the memoir of some well- 
known and distinguished personage, and publish it, 
not as grave, credible biography, but under the 
character of a novel, the authenticity of the work 
would have no connection with its truth. But 
should he issue a book professing to be the true 
biography of Washington ; should he vouch in every 
way for its truth, and stake his reputation upon its 
accuracy, in the midst of a generation familiar with 
the life of that noble man, and still containing some 
who were his companions and the eye-witnesses of 
many of his deeds, it would be reasonably inferred 
that, unless the author were an idiot or a madman, 
his work must be correct, at least, in the great mass 
of its statements, and in all its conspicuous events. 
He must be aware that, under such circumstances, 
no important narrative without truth could escape 
detection. The fact, therefore, that he has published, 
in the midst of this generation, what he expects to 
be received as a correct biography of Washington, 
is sufficient warrant that, however inaccurate it may 
be in minute details, and however deficient in many 
respects of good writing and useful history, we may 
safely receive its principal narratives. Such a thing 
cannot be produced as a book published in the age 
in which its events are said to have occurred, and 
among the people to whose minds those events are 
said to have been familiar ; a book which its author 
gravely avowed, and defended as true and accurate; 



LECTURE IV. 93 

and yet in its principal narratives, in its prominent 
characters and occurrences, was not in accordance 
with fact. Men have too much sense, if not too 
much honesty, to attempt such a Quixotic adventure; 
especially when character and worldly interests are 
committed by the falsehood. But there is no book, 
to which this remark is so applicable as the New 
Testament. Not only was it published in the age 
in which the events related are asserted to have 
occurred, and among the people to whom they are 
said to have been notorious ; but in an age and 
among a people awake to the whole subject of its 
history ; determined to sift its correctness to the 
uttermost ; capable of the severest scrutiny, and 
anxious to take advantage of the smallest inaccuracy. 
This the writers were perfectly aware of. They 
must have known that, in the brevity of the history ; 
in the fewness of its principal facts ; in the great 
prominence and notoriety of each ; in the few 
persons to whom they belong, as their leading 
agents ; in the few places and the confined region 
in which they are said to have occurred ; and in 
the brief space of time within which they were all 
embraced ; their adversaries possessed advantages 
for investigation which nothing but bold and plain 
truth could confront, and no fiction could possibly 
elude. That, in the face of all these advantages, 
they did publish, and stake their characters and 
lives upon the correctness of their narratives, is a 
full warrant that they published truth. This argu- 
ment can only be escaped by charging the writers 
of the New Testament with a degree of idiocy or 
madness, which the eminent wisdom and excellence 
of their works prove to have been impossible. I 
venture to say, that should the same argument 
be alleged with equal force in behalf of any other 
ancient book of history, its credibility, as to the 
main events related, would be considered, independ- 



94 LECTURE IV. 

ently of any other evidence, as placed beyond a 
reasonable suspicion. 

Here, then, we might proceed to open the New 
Testament as a book of correct narrative : certified 
that, because authentic^ it is therefore, as to all 
important matters of fact, credible. But we are 
not restricted to a single method of proof. The 
subject is compassed about with a cloud of wit- 
nesses. We take up another and broader plan of 
argument, the force of which none can mistake. 

Let me ask, by what sort of evidence you would 
feel assured of the credibility of any history, pro- 
fessing to relate events of a passed age ? Suppose 
you should discover a volume hitherto concealed, 
professing to have been written by some well-known 
individual of the Augustan age, and to contain a 
narrative of events in the personal history and do- 
mestic life of Augustus Csesar. You would first 
examine into its authenticity. That settled, you 
would inquire into the credibility of its narrative. 
The first question would be. Did the writer possess 
every advantage of knowing the events in the per- 
sonal history of Augustus? May I depend on the 
sufficiency of his knowledge ? Now, he may not 
have lived with Augustus, and yet his knowledge 
may have been perfectly adequate. But your mind 
would be fully satisfied on this head, should it 
appear that the writer was not only a contemporary, 
but that he was domesticated with Augustus ; con- 
versed familiarly with him, lived at his table, as- 
sisted at his councils, accompanied him on his 
journeys 

The question of adequate knowledge being thus 
at rest, another would remain — May I depend on 
the honesty of the writer ? In ordinary cases, you 
would be satisfied if nothing appeared in the book 
itself, or in the testimony of contemporaneous writ- 
ings, impeaching his honesty. But your satisfac- 



LECTURE IV. 95 

tion would be much increased, should you discover, 
in the style and spirit of the narrative, in its sim- 
plicity, modesty, and freedom of manner, in the 
circumstantial character of its details, and the fre- 
quency of its allusions to time, place, and persons, 
those internal features of honesty, which it is so 
extremely difficult, if not impossible, to counterfeit. 
Your confidence would grow exceedingly, if, on a 
comparison of the book with other well-established 
histories of the same times, you should discover, not 
only that there is no contradiction in any particular, 
but that all its allusions to the customs, institutions, 
prejudices, and political events of the times, are 
abundantly confirmed from other sources. This 
would set the honesty of the writer in a very fa- 
vourable light. 

But suppose that, at this stage, you should dis- 
cover three other books, upon the same subject ; 
each evidently written by a person in the family 
and confidence of Augustus, or else with equally 
favourable opportunities of knowing him ; each 
evidently an independent work, and having all the 
inward and outward marks of truth before detailed. 
Suppose, that on comparing these four histories 
together, you find that, while each contains some 
minor facts which the others do not, and relates 
what all contain in common, in its own style and 
language, there is no disagreement among them ; 
but, on the contrary, the most perfect confirmation 
one of another. Surely, after this, no further evi- 
dence could be demanded of the veracity of all 
those historians. But still, though you would have 
no right to require, you might perhaps discover, ad- 
ditional evidence. You might search collateral his- 
tory for the private characters of those writers ; and 
how would it heighten your satisfaction to find that, 
universally they were esteemed beyond reproach, 
even by their personal opponents. You might also 



96 LECTURE IV. 

inquire what motive they could have had for decep- 
tion ; and how conclusive would it seem in tiieir 
favour to discover that, so far from any suspicion 
of such a motive attaching to them, they had un- 
dertaken to publish what they did, with the cer- 
tainty of sacrificing every thing earthly, and actually 
plunged themselves by it into poverty, contempt, 
and suffering. One can hardly imagine stronger 
evidence of truth. None could, with any reason, 
require it. 

But yet there might be additional evidence. These 
historians, perhaps, had many and bitter personal 
adversaries: how did they treat their books ? The 
books were published during the lifetime of many 
who had seen Augustus, and had witnessed the 
principal events described; they were published in 
the very places where those events took place, and 
in the midst of thousands who knew all about them : 
how, then, did their enemies treat these histories ? 
Now, should you discover that the personal adversa- 
ries of these four writers, however disposed, were 
unable to deny, but, on the contrary, acknowledged, 
assumed, and reasoned upon their narratives as true ; 
and, furthermore, that the thousands who had wit- 
nessed the principal events recorded, never contra- 
dicted those narratives, but in numerous instances 
afforded all the confirmation they were capable of; 
I am sure you would think the whole evidence for 
the credibility of those four histories, not only con- 
clusive, but singularly and wonderfully so. 

I have thus sketched a mass of evidence, and a 
variety of adequate proof, which, were the half of 
it required for any book of ancient history but the 
Bible, would bring its credibility into utter con- 
demnation. If a book, with all this in its favour, 
ought not to be believed, historical truth, or the 
possibility of ascertaining it, must be given up. But 
who would think of resisting such evidence ? What 



LECTURE IV. 97 

would be thought of the intellect, not to speak of the 
candour, of the man, who, with all this before him, 
should take up the memoirs of the life of Augustus 
Csesar, as above supposed, and not feel that it were 
the absurdest folly to question the accuracy of their 
statements ? In laying out this sketch, I have exhi- 
bited a general view of the evidence for the credi- 
bility of the Gospel history. In proceeding now to 
more particular details, I hope to show you that 
every branch of the evidence I have glanced at, how- 
ever vain to seek it in favour of any other ancient 
history, can be cited in attestation of the credibility 
of that in the New Testament. 

From the brief view we have taken of the evidence 
which may be brought for the credibility of any his- 
torical document, it appears that the great points to 
be made out in favour of the writer are these two — 
competent knowledge and trustworthy honesty. Did 
he know enough to write a true account? and then, 
was he honest enough to be unable to write any 
other than a true account? Establish these, and 
the book is established — the question is closed. Let 
us take this plan as to the history before us. We 
have several independent writings containing th^ 
Gospel history. Let us select that of St. John, and 
try the question first upon it. We begin then with 
this most important inquiry : 

I. Had the writer of this book sufficient oppor- 
tunities of possessing adequate knowledge as to those 
matters of fact which he has related ? I do not 
suppose that much array of argument can be neces- 
sary to prove that he had every opportunity. It is 
to be first considered that the amount of knowledge 
required to enable John, or either of the other 
evangelists, to give an accurate account of so much 
of the life of Christ, and of the transactions con- 
faected with his cause, as he has embraced in his 
narrative, was not very considera,ble. The Gospel 

H 



98 LECTVRE IV, 

history is contained in a small space. Twenty-nine 
or thirty pages, of a common family Bible, comprise 
the whole of what John has related. It is a plain 
straight-forward account of a very simple intelligible 
train of events. There are no labyrinths of historical 
truth to trace out — no perplexed involutions of cir- 
cumstances to unravel. Consequently, when you 
consider that John, by the testimony of all tradition, 
as well as that of the Gospel history, was a member 
of the household of Christ — admitted into his most 
unreserved and affectionate intercourse — the disciple 
whom he specially loved — who accompanied him in 
all his journeyings, followed him into his retire- 
ments, stood beneath his cross, and was a constant 
companion of the other disciples, and a witness of 
their actions — you will readily grant that John must 
have possessed all desirable opportunities of know- 
ing, and must actually have known, the Gospel his- 
tory so perfectly as to be fully competent to write an 
accurate account. I shall, therefore, refrain from 
any further remarks upon this branch of the argu- 
ment, and shall pass to the second, in entire con- 
fidence that I leave no mind in any reasonable 
doubt of the adequateness of Our historian s know- 
ledge. 

The second and the main question to be pursued 
is this : Have we reason to rely with implicit confi- 
dence upon the honesty of this historian ? Believing 
him to have known enough to relate the truth, may 
^ we also believe that he was too honest to relate any 
thing but the truth ? This is a fair and plain ques- 
tion. Prove the negative, and John's history must 
be given up. Prove the affirmative, and it ^' is 
worthy of all acceptation.*' We begin the argument 
for the affirmative. 

II. There is abundant evidence that the writers 
of the Gospel history were too honest to relate any 
thing hut truth. 



LECTURE IV. 99 

We will apply, in the first place, to the history it- 
self. There are certain characteristic marks of his- 
torical honesty, which can hardly be counterfeited to 
any extent, and always produce a favourable im- 
pression. Take up the history written by St. John. 
I call your attention to the obvious fact that, 

1st. Its narrative is in a very high degree circum-' 
stantial. A false-witness will not need to be cau- 
tioned against the introduction of many minute cir- 
cumstances into his statement. The more he connects 
it with the particulars of time, and place, and persons, 
so as to locate his facts, and bring in living men as 
associated with them, the more does he multiply the 
probability of detection. He gives the cross-exa- 
mination every advantage. It would be impossible 
for a false statement, abounding in such details, and 
at the same time exciting general interest in the 
neighbourhood where, and soon after, they are al- 
leged to have occurred, to escape exposure. Con- 
sequently, when we take up a narrative thus minutely- 
circumstantial, and which we are sure did excite 
among all classes, where its events are located, the 
very highest and most scrutinizing interest, and that, 
too, within a short time after the period to which 
the events are referred ; we always feel impressed 
with a strong persuasion that the writer had the 
consciousness of truth, and the fearlessness of 
honesty. It is evident that he had no disposition, 
and therefore no cause, to shun the closest inves- 
tigation. On the other hand, if you take up any 
books professing to be histories of events within the 
reach and investigation of those among whom they 
were first published, but yet in a great measure un- 
true, you will find a great deficiency of such minute 
details of time, place, and persons, as would serve 
to test their faithfulness. Compare th.em with the 
histories of the Peloponnesian and Gallic wars, by 
Thucvdides and Julius Cses^r, and you will see 
• * li 2 



100 LECTURE IV. 

directly how strong a feature of true narrative, m 
distinction from whatever is in a great degree in- 
vented, is a circumstantial detail of minute par- 
ticulars. 

Generality is the cloak of fiction. Minuteness is 
the natural manner of truth, in proportion to the 
importance and interest of the subject. Such is the 
precise manner and continual evidence of the honesty 
of St. John. His history is full of the most minute 
circumstances of time, place, and persons. Does 
he record, for example, the resuscitation of Lazarus ? 
He tells the name of the village, and describes the 
particular spot where the event occurred. He gives 
the names of some of the principal individuals who 
were present ; mentions many unbelieving Jews as 
eye-witnesses; states the precise object for which 
they had come to the place; what they did and 
said ; the time the body had been buried ; how the 
sepulchre was constructed and closed ; the impres- 
sion which the event made upon the Jews ; how 
they were divided in opinion in consequence of it ; 
the particular expressions of one whose name is 
given ; the subsequent conduct of the Jews in re- 
gard to Lazarus. This, you perceive, is being very 
circumstantial. It is only a specimen of the general 
character of St. John^s Gospel. It looks very much 
as if the writer was not afraid of any thing the 
people of Bethany, or the survivors among those 
who had been present at the tomb of Lazarus, or the 
children of any of them, might have to say with re^ 
gard to the resurrection. Now, when you consider 
that John's history was widely circulated while 
many were yet living, who, had these events never 
been in Bethany, must have known it ; and among 
a people, who, in addition to every facility, had 
■every desire to find out the least departure from 
truth, I think you will acknowledge that the circum- 
stantial character of this book is very strong evidence 



LECTURE IV. lOr 

that the author must have written in the confidence 
of truth. 

2d. Another striking evidence, to the same point, 
is seen in this, that the author exhibits no con- 
sciousness of narrating any thing, about which, as a 
matter of notorious fact, there was the smallest 
doubt. He takes no pains, evinces no thought of 
attempting, to convince his reader of the truth of 
what he relates. On the contrary, the whole nar- 
rative is conducted with the manner and aspect of 
one who takes for granted the entire notoriety of 
his statements. He comes before the public as one 
familiarly known, needing no account of himself, or 
of his pretensions to excite universal confidence. He 
goes right onward with his story, delivering the least 
and the most wonderful relations in the same simple 
and unembarrassed manner of ease and confidence, 
which nothing but an assurance of unimpeachable 
consistency can explain. Nothing is said to account 
for what might seem inexplicable ; to defend what 
would probably be cavilled at; to anticipate objec- 
tions which one, feeling himself on questionable 
ground, would naturally look for. The writer seems 
to be conscious that, with regard to those for whom 
especially he wrote, all this were needless. He is 
willing to commit his simple statement alone, un- 
defended, unvarnished, into the hands of friend or 
foe. 

Nothing is more remarkable in this connection 
than that, while he could not have been ignorant 
that he was relating many very extraordinary and 
wonderful events, he shows no wonder in his own 
mind, and seems to expect no wonder among his 
readers. This looks exceedingly like one who writes 
not of extraordinary events just contrived in his 
own imagination, but of extraordinary events which, 
whatever the wonder they excited when first known, 
are now perfectly notorious, not only to himself, but 



l02 LECTURE IV, 

to all his readers. It is one thing to relate a series 
of astonishing occurrences which we feel are per- 
fectly new to the readers, and a very different thing 
to relate the same to those who have long since been 
familiarly acquainted with their prominent particu- 
lars, and desire only a more circumstantial and con- 
fidential account. In the former case, the writer 
would naturally, and almost necessarily, betray in 
his style and the whole texture of his statement, an 
expectation of the wonder and probable incredulity 
of his readers. In the latter, he would deliver his 
narrative as if he were thinking only of an accurate 
detail of truth, without particular reference to 
whether it was astonishing, or the contrary. Thus 
it is with St. John. There is no appearance of his 
having felt as if any of his Gospel would be new, 
or excite any new emotions of wonder in his readers. 
The marvellous works of Christ were, at that time, 
notorious. When first heard of, they excited uni- 
versal astonishment. " His fame went abroad, and 
all the people were amazed.'* But so much time 
had now elapsed, that emotions of wonder had sub- 
sided, under the influence of repetition and famili- 
arity. In striking consistency with this, is the whole 
aspect of St. John's narrative. He goes directly 
forward in the relation of events in themselves ex- 
ceedingly impressive and astonishing, exhibiting no 
sign of any astonishment in his own mind, antici- 
pating none in his contemporaneous readers. How 
is this to be explained ? One can discover no plau- 
sible explanation but in the supposition that he was 
conscious of recording events with which, in their 
chief particulars, the public mind had been entirely 
familiarized. This may deservedly be considered a 
strong indication of truth. 

3d. I see another plain evidence, to the same 
point, in the minute accuracy which marks all the 
allusions of this narrative to the mannerSy cus- 



LECTURE IV. 103 

tomSj opinions, political events, and other circum- 
stances of the times. The situation of Judea, in 
the time of the Saviour, was such as to bring it 
frequently under the eye of the profane writers of 
that age. From them we derive a great many par- 
ticulars, illustrating the several modifications in the 
civil and religious institutions of the Jews, by their 
subjection to Rome. And thus we have a great 
many points of comparison between the Gospel his- 
tory and the other histories of the same times. 
The former contains innumerable references to the 
peculiarities then existing in the Jewish state — its 
laws, courts, punishments — as well as to the opin- 
ions, prejudices, and customs, then prevailing. This 
was dangerous ground for the inventor of a story. 
The continual fluctuations in public affairs, the 
numerous and complex changes in the supreme offi- 
cers of Judea and the neighbouring provinces, as 
well as in the boundaries and character of their 
governments, within the period embraced in the 
Gospel history, must have added greatly to the diffi- 
culty of an inventor of a narrative located in such 
circumstances, and filled with allusions to them. 
We have a Jewish historian of the same age, with 
vi^hom to confront the Gospel history. Josephus has 
furnished us with a full and minute account of 
those internal affairs of the Jews, both civil and re- 
ligious, to which allusions are made in the Gospel 
history. It would evidently be very far beyond 
the limits of a lecture, to attempt a proof that 
all the minutest allusions in our sacred history 
are not only uncontradicted, but, wherever the same 
things are spoken of, are positively confirmed by 
the secular authority to which we have referred. 
But we assert it as a fact, well known to every stu- 
dent of the Gospel history, and of which any, who 
have the disposition to examine the question, may 
easily be satisfied. Now, it seems to me it would 



i04 ' LECTURE IV. 

have been next to impossible for the inventor of a 
story, exciting such general and intense interest, 
branching out into such circumstantial details, and 
connected, at so many points, with the peculiarities 
of the times, to tread upon ground so covered with 
snares, without being caught. 

4th. Hitherto we have directed your attention to 
the Gospel history as furnished by only one of its 
witnesses. But suppose you should unexpectedly 
discover in the ruins of Herculaneum three distinct 
writings, heretofore entirely unknown, but containing 
the most satisfactory evidence of authenticity, and evi- 
dently written in the first century of Christianity, by 
three several and independent authors, each pos- 
sessed of the best opportunities of knowledge. And 
suppose that in every one of them there should be 
found a history of Christ and his Gospel ; what an 
uncommon opportunity would it seem of trying the 
accuracy of this book of St. John. Even if these 
three newly discovered authors were bad men ; yet, 
if their statements should agree with his, it would 
determine the accuracy of his history. But if it 
should appear that they were all good men, how 
much more complete would be their confirmation. 
Suppose, however, it should turn out that these three 
writers were not only good men, but, like St. John, 
disciples of Christ, and ministers of his Gospel; 
what effect would their concurrent testimony then 
have upon his accuracy ? Would it be diminished 
in conclusiveness, by the discovery of their christian 
character ? I believe that, in the minds of multi- 
titudes, it would ; but most unjustly. Precisely the 
contrary should be the consequence. If four of the 
chief officers in Napoleon's staff had published me- 
moirs of his life, I venture to say that the concur- 
rence of their several statements, instead of having 
Its evidence weakened, because they were all at- 
tached to Napoleon and admitted to his domestic 



LECTURE IV. 105 

circle, would be greatly strengthened, in your esti- 
mation, by that very circumstance, inasmuch as it 
would ensure the accuracy of their knowledge, 
without impeaching their integrity. But some seem 
to suppose that the laws regulating the force of tes- 
timony are all changed as soon as the matter of fact, 
in question, is removed from the department of pro- 
fane to that of sacred history. 

How much has been made of the testimony of the 
Roman historian, Tacitus, to some of the chief 
facts of the Gospel history ! It is the testimony of a 
heathen, and, therefore, supposed to be incompa- 
rably valuable. Now, suppose that Tacitus the 
heathen had not only been persuaded of the facts he 
has related, but had been so deeply impressed with 
the belief of them as to have renounced heathenism, 
and embraced the christian faith, and then published 
the history we now possess; who does not know 
that, with the infidel, and with many a believer, his 
testimony would have greatly suffered in practical 
force ? No reason for this can be given, except that 
we have a vague idea that a christian in the cause 
of Christianity must be an interested witness. To 
be sure, he is interested. But is his testimony the 
less valuable ? 

A scientific man, bearing testimony to a pheno- 
menon in natural history, is an interested witness, 
because he is devoted to science, but his testimony 
is not the less valuable. A good man, bearing tes- 
timony to the character of another good man, is an 
interested witness, because he is the friend of virtue 
and of all good men, but his testimony is not the 
less valuable. In this, and no other sense, were the 
original disciples interested witnesses. They were 
interested in Christianity, only so far as they believed 
it true. Suppose them to have known it to be un- 
true, and you cannot imagine the least jot or tittle 
of interest they could have had in it. In such a 



106 LECTURE IV. 

case, Oil the contrary, the current of all their inte- 
rests and prepossessions would run directly and 
powerfully in opposition to Christianity. This, then, 
being the only way in which they can be regarded as 
interested, the force of their testimony, so far from 
being in the least impaired, is greatly enhanced by 
the consideration. The bare fact that any primitive 
v/riter, bearing witness to events related by St. John, 
was not a heathen, or a Jew, but a christian, is the 
very thing that should be regarded as completing 
his testimony. Is the evidence of Tacitus, who re- 
lates such events, but remained a heathen, any thing 
like so strong, as if we could say, it is the evidence 
of Tacitus, who was a heathen, but believed those 
events so firmly, that he became a christian ? If a man 
speak well to me of the virtues of a certain medicine, 
but does not use it himself, is his opinion half so 
weighty, as if he were to receive it into his own vitals, 
and administer it in his family ? Would it be rea- 
sonable, in this case, to refuse his testimony, because 
you might denominate him an interested witness ? 

I have thus enlarged upon this head, because I am 
going to present you with the concurrent testimony 
of seven ancient writers, in confirmation of the 
accuracy of the Gospel history, as given by St. 
John. They are writers whose testimony has this 
particular value, that whereas once they were Jews, 
and enemies to the Gospel, they were afterwards 
converted to its belief and service ; became chris- 
tians, and as christians wrote, and gave every prac- 
tical evidence that what they wrote they believed. 
Of these, three composed regular histories of the 
life and labours of Christ, similar in object to that of 
John. One of them, beside a memoir of Christ, has 
carried on the subsequent history of Christianity, 
under the name of the Acts of the Apostles. Four 
others composed various letters to different indi- 
viduals, or bodies of Christians, in which they allude 



LECTURE IV. 1()7 

continually to events related in the narratives of the 
former. Now, all these several writings are perfectly 
independent, each of the rest. We have them 
bound up in one volume, and are apt to overlook 
the fact, that they are as independent productions as 
if they had never been in contact with one another. 
Written by various authors in widely remote coun- 
tries, in all parts of the first century from its forty- 
first to its ninety-seventh year, in as many different 
styles and methods as they had writers ; these pro- 
ductions cannot, with the least reason, be suspected 
of having been composed in concert. Of the com- 
petency of the knowledge of each writer, we can 
have no more doubt than in the case of St. John. 
In each of their histories we see the same circum- 
stantiality^ the same striking internal characteristics 
of honesty, as we have already noticed in that of the 
other evangelist. Now, let us divest ourselves of 
the delusion so apt to arise out of the thought that 
they are christian witnesses ; and as if this were a 
question as to the truth of a history of Pythagoras 
by one of his disciples, and these other writers were 
also contemporaneous disciples of Pythagoras, let us 
bring them face to face, and see how they agree. 
Here, then, we have four independent histories of 
the life of Christ, all of them by his contemporaries, 
besides the other documents we have mentioned. 
Now, " it is an extraordinary and singular fact, that 
no history since the commencement of the world has 
been written by so great a number of the compan- 
ions and friends of an illustrious person, as that of 
our Saviour, One contemporary history is a rarity 
— two is a coincidence scarcely known — four is, so 
far as appears, unparalleled.'** We have, therefore, 
an unequalled opportunity of coming at the truth. 
We compare our several histories. If we find them 
contradictory, our confidence declines. If they 

* Wilson's Lectures. 



108 LECTURE IV. 

bear a systematic, particular, and yet comprehensive 
resemblance, we must suspect collusion. But we 
perceive neither the contradiction nor the resem- 
blance. We see great variety. What one relates, 
another sometimes leaves out. They differ in 
arrangement, in minuteness, and sometimes as to 
fact, in such manner that the reader might be 
alarmed at first view, lest there should be found a 
contradiction ; while such is the actual agreem.ent> 
that all difficulties vanish before a strict investiga- 
tion ; and, down to the utmost minuteness of state- 
ment, their mutual support is undiminished by a 
single opposing representation. The attempts of 
infidels to make out the appearance of contradiction, 
show to what shifts they have been driven, and how 
accurate is the concurrence. Now, this unfailing 
agreement of four several, independent, and con- 
temporaneous historians — each so circumstantial — 
each so full of allusions to the events, and institu- 
tions, and customs of the times — and none contra- 
dicted by any evidence whatever — is as convincing 
an evidence of the honest accuracy of all, as any 
mind should require. Were the Gospel history 
untrlie, such evidence would have been morally 
impossible. It is peculiar to that history. * No 
other can plead it, to any similar extent. And here 
we feel that we might safely leave the question of 
credibility. But there are two or three points 
remaining, which must not be left unnoticed. 

Should I occupy enough of your time to take any 
thing like a full view of the whole of this argument, 
I should here introduce the uncontradicted ac- 
knowledgment of Jewish and heathen enemies of 
the Gospel, to the purity and integrity of the primi- 
tive disciples of Christ ; the strong evidence of their 
having possessed these virtues, exhibited in the 
peculiarly modest and humble manner in which the 
evangehsts speak of themselves, never concealing or 



LECTURE IV. 10^ 

excusing what might make exceedingly against 
them, but always mentioning what might seem 
humiliating or honourable to themselves in the same 
plain, simple way as they relate any other matter 
of fact. We should also introduce the variety 
of incidental confirmations obtained from profane 
writers, and from coins, of various particulars 
contained in the Gospel history. We should cite 
especially the testimony of Tacitus to the time and 
the fact of the Saviour's crucifixion ; as well as the 
records called the Acts of Pilate, bearing witness to 
the same event, and appealed to by early christian 
writers as notoriously laid up among the papers of 
the Roman senate. But since we have not room for 
every thing, we must dispense with these parti- 
culars.* 

Let it be remembered that we are still employed 
upon the honesty of the writers of the Gospel history. 
Suppose, then, for a moment, that they were not 
honest in their statements — that they knew they 
were endeavouring to pass off a downright imposi- 
tion upon the w^orld. We v/ill not speak of their 
intellect in such a case, but of their motive. Now, 
it would be difficult to suppose that any man could 
devote himself to the diligent promotion of such an 
imposture, without some very particular motive. 
Much more that, without such motive, the eight 
various writers concerned in the New Testament 
should have united in the plan. What motive could 
they have had ? If impostors, they were bad men ; 
their motive, therefore, must have been bad. It 
must have been to advance themselves, either in 
wealth, honour, or power. Take either, or all of 
these objects, and here, then, is the case you have. 
Four historians, with four other writers of the New 
Testament — all, but one of them, poor unlearned 

* See Korne's latrod. vol..i. 



110 LECTURE IV. 

lY^en — undertake to persuade the world that certain 
great events took place before the eyes of thousands 
in Judea and Gahlee, which none in those regions 
ever saw or heard of, and they know, perfectly well, 
did never occur. They see, beforehand, that the 
attempt to make Jews and heathens believe these 
things will occasion to themselves all manner of 
disgrace and persecution. Nevertheless, so fond 
are they of their contrivance, that though it is 
bitterly opposed by all the habits, prejudices, 
dispositions, and philosophy— all the powers and 
institutions of all people— they submit cheerfully to 
misery and contempt— they take joyfully the spoil- 
ing of their goods — they willingly endure to be 
counted as fools, and the ofTscouring of all things- 
yea, they march thankfully to death, out of a mere 
desire to propagate a story which they all know is 
a downright fabrication. *^At every step of their 
progress they see and feel, that instead of any 
worldly advantage, they are daily loading themselves 
with ruin. At any moment they can turn about, 
and renounce their effort, and retrieve their losses ; 
and yet^ with perfect unanimity, these eight, with 
thousands of others equally aware of the deception, 
persist most resolutely in their career of ignominy 
and suffering. Not the slightest confession, even 
under torture and the strong allurements of reward, 
escapes the lips of any. Not the least hesitation is 
shown, when to each is offered the choice of recanta- 
tion or death. He that can believe such a case of 
fraud and folly as this, can believe any thing. He 
believes a miracle infinitely more difficult of credit 
than any in the Gospel history. I charge him with 
the most superstitious and besotted credulity. In 
getting to such a belief, he has to trample over all 
the laws of nature and of reasoning. Then on what 
an unassailable rock does the honesty of the writers 
of the New Testament stand, if it can be attacked 



LECTURE IV. Ill 

'only at such sacrifices. How evident it is, not only 
that they could have had no motive to deceive, 
but that in all their self-devotion and sacrifices 
they gave the strongest possible evidence of having 
published what they solemnly believed was true.* 

Now, if I have produced satisfactory proof from 
all the unquestionable marks of honesty in the Gos- 
pel history ; from the concurrence of profane his- 
torians with many of its facts; from their being 
contradicted by none ; from the unprecedented har- 
mony of eight independent writers in their minutest 
events and allusions ; from the impossibility of 
supposing any motive to deception, and from the 
sacrifices the apostles endured in the promotion of 
Christianity ; if from these sources I have satisfac- 
torily shown that the writers of the Gospel history 
could not have intended to record any thing but 
truth — then, having previously ascertained that they 
must have known whether what they wrote was true 
or false, we have those two requisites which ensure 
the credibility of any history — knowledge and ho- 
nesty. This shuts up the question. But it is not 
the whole strength of the argument. A question 
may be shut up and locked ; but then it may have 
bolts and bars besides. The truth of the Gospel 
history is not only sealed, but sealed seven- fold. 

It has all the testimony that could possibly have 
been expected^ in the nature of things, from the 
enemies of Christianity, It would have been un- 
reasonable to expect that a heathen or Jew would 
come forward with a detailed statement to acknow- 
ledge the events narrated by the evangelists. We 

* " We cannot make use (says Hume) of a more con- 
vincing argument" (in proof of honesty) ** than to prove 
that the actions ascribed to any persons are contrary to the 
course of nature, and that no human motives, in such cir- 
cumstances, could ever induce them to such a conduct." — 
Philosophical Essays. 



1 12 LECTURE IV, 

have not this ; but we have much better. We have^ 
the confession of the whole nation of Jews, and of 
all the Greeks, to the same point. None ever ven- 
tured in any publication to deny the statements of 
the evangelists. Unquestionably they would have 
done it, every where, had they been able. When 
Luke published in Jerusalem, that a man lame from 
the birth was healed by Peter and John, while sit- 
ting, begging, at the gate of the temple, and that a 
great multitude came together on account of the 
wonderful deed ; had the Jews of Jerusalem been 
able to deny it, would their persecuting enmity 
have permitted them to be silent ? Be it remem- 
bered, that the Gospel history was published in the 
places where its events are said to have occurred— 
in the lifetime of many enemies who are said to 
have seen them. Now, it is certain that no adversa- 
ries, either in Judea, or Greece, or Rome, rested 
their opposition to the Gospel, in any degree, on the 
denial of these events. What is the inference? 
They could not deny them. What is the meaning 
of this silence? Being interpreted, it is nothing less 
than a universal testimony from all Jews and hea- 
thens, who were capable of knowing any thing of the 
matter, that these things were so. But they did not 
stop here. Tacitus, the Roman historian, positively 
asserts some of the chief events of the gospel.* 
Celsus, a bitter antagonist of Christianity, in the se- 
cond century ;t Porphyry, a learned as well as ear- 
nest opposer, in the third ;t and Julian, the apostate 
emperor, in the next century ;% all acknowledge not 
only the authenticity of the New Testament books, 
but, so far as they refer to them, the historical cor- 
rectness of their narratives, even as to the most ex- 
traordinary particulars, not excluding the miracles o^ 
Christ. But we have stronger witness still. 

♦ t.ardner, iii. 611. t lb. iv. 121—130; 133, 4. 
t lb. 234-8. ^ lb. 341,2. 



LECTURE IV. 113 

About thirty-two years after the crucifixion, the 
first Roman persecution took place under Nero. 
The number of Christians discovered in the one city 
of Rome, and condemned, is called by Tacitus, ** a 
vast multitude,'"^ Of course, they must have been 
exceedingly numerous in all other places taken to- 
gether. These, but a few years before, were all either 
Jews or heathens. Many resided in Jerusalem, 
Capernaum, Antioch, Philippi, Ephesus, Corinth, 
&c. By the time of this persecution, all the Gos- 
pels but one, as well as the Acts of the Apostles, 
had been published. The events recorded in these 
books are said to have taken place before the eyes 
of the people of the cities just mentioned. It was 
an easy thing for those people to ascertain whether 
they, or their neighbours, or parents, had seen them. 
What did they do ? They came forward in great 
multitudes ; they threw off Judaism, threw off pa- 
ganism, espoused the Gospel, and suffered unto 
death, sooner than renounce it. This was but thirty- 
three years after the events recorded of Christ; it 
was in the life-time of Paul. I say, therefore, that 
every Christian of those days was a witness — the 
strongest witness — far more impressive in his attes- 
tation than any enemy could have been, to the 
shining, powerful truth of the Gospel history, '* We 
are compassed about," therefore, '^ with a great 
cloud of witnesses / witnesses who did not just 
acknowledge these things, and still remain what 
they were before ; but witnesses adding to their 
acknowledgment the testimony of their conversion ; 
the evidence of their lives, w^hich were wholly de- 
voted to these things ; the seals of ten thousand 
martyrdoms, endured solely on account of their per- 
fect assurance of these things. 

Now, consider a moment, and see the utter im^ 
possibility that the Gospel history -should have 
* Tac. Annal. lib. xv. c. 44; Lardaer, iii. 610—14. 

I 



114 LECTURE IV. 

gained such currency for a single year, had it not 
been notoriously true. In about eight years after 
the crucifixion, Matthew pubhshes his Gospel 
among the Jews. He tells the people of Jerusalem 
that, only eight years from that time, while a great 
multitude of them were witnessing the crucifixion 
of our Lord Jesus, there was darkness over the whole 
land from twelve, to three o'clock in the afternoon, 
and '* the veil of the temple was rent in twain, and 
the earth did quake, and the rocks rent." Suppose 
all this to have been a fabrication ; would Jerusa- 
lem have held her peace? could a book of such 
barefaced untruth have lived an hour ? 

The book of the Acts of the Apostles was pub- 
lished about thirty years after the ascension of 
Christ, and was immediately circulated among the 
churches, and open to the perusal of the enemies 
of Christianity. It is related in the second chapter 
of that work, that on the day of Pentecost, soon 
after the death of Christ, when a great multitude, 
collected from all parts of the earth, were assembled 
at Jerusalem ; a deep impression of astonishment 
was produced on the public mind by a rumour of 
certain miraculous events in the company of the 
apostles, so that ** the multitude came together and 
were confounded, because that every man heard 
them speak in his own language." Parthians, and 
Medes, and Elamites, and Cretes, and Arabians, 
dwellers in all countries, men of every speech, were 
amazed at hearing those Galileans, who were well 
known to have learned no other tongue than that of 
Palestine, speaking, in all varieties of foreign lan- 
guages, the wonderful works of God. Such is the 
relation in the Acts of the Apostles. How could a 
writer, in his senses, attempt to pass it upon his 
readers, had it not been notorious that such things 
had actually occurred? The lapse of thirty years 
could not have so obliterated every recollection of 



LECTURE IV. 115 

that feast, or so syi^ept the v/orld of surviving 
witnesses, as to prevent the certainty, that wherever 
this book should circulate, it would meet with 
persons capable of remembering or of ascertaining 
whether these things were so. Had not the fact of 
the apostles having spoken in the presence of 
thousands, in various tongues, been undeniable, 
witnesses innumerable would have arisen against 
the book that related it. Had no such event 
occurred, the Acts of the Apostles could have gone 
into no part of the world without finding those who 
would stand up and declare that they were at the 
feast referred to, and saw nothing and heard nothing 
of the marvellous things declared by its author. I 
say, therefore, the fact that the Gospel history was 
received, loved, and read, every where among 
christians ; that it has outlived all the withering of 
time, and all the weapons of enemies ; that Jews 
could not gainsay it, nor heathens resist it ; that 
eighteen centuries of scrutiny and trial have only 
added new assurance to its truth, is one which 
reduces the supposition of imposture to a perfect 
and ridiculous absurdity. Therefore was it not in 
the power of such modern infidels as Hobbes, and 
Chub, and Bolingbroke to deny the point in 
question. The latter, as an example of the others, 
speaking of John and Matthew, acknowledges that 
** they recorded the doctrines of Christ in the very 
words in which he taught them ; and they were 
careful to mention the several occasions on which he 
delivered them to his disciples or others. If, there- 
fore, Plato and Xenophon tell us, with a good deal 
of certainty, what Socrates taught, these two evan- 
gelists seem to tell us, with much more, what the 
Saviour taught, and commanded them to teach." 

Here I think we may safely leave the question of 
credibility. So conclusive and certain have seemed 
to my mind the several consecutive arguments to 

i2 



116 LECTURE IV. 

which you have listened, that instead of feeling at 
each step as if any candid hearer would wait for 
additional proof, I have felt not unfrequently as it 
1 were tiring your attention with an unnecessary 
accumulation. Why this heaping of argument 
upon argument, one may say, when from the very 
outset of the question, from the certam authenticity 
of the Gospels, united with their internal evidence, 
we have a proof of credibility with which any 
rational mind should be perfectly satisfied? We 
acknowledge the reasonableness of the niquiry- 1* 
the history under consideration related to the lite ot^ 
Alexander the Great and his generals, instead oi 
that of the meek and lowly Jesus and his apostles 
who would think it necessary to go into all this detail 
of evidence, to establish its truth? That it contained 
no internal marks of dishonesty ; that it was uncon- 
tradicted by contemporaneous writers and by other 
histories of the same times; that it had been re- 
ceived, ever since, as a tirue account ; would be con- 
sidered an ample warrant of its historical correctness. 
Few if any, profane histories, can produce more 
positive proof of credibility than this. Try them by 
the scale on which the Gospel history is measured ; 
require them to present one half of the weight of 
evidence which infidels demand, and christians bring 
in support of the sacred narrative ; and you musi 
exclude them from all claim to the confidence of 
their readers. We might speak of the unfairness ot 
requiring so much more in proof of a history because 
its character is sacred, and its facts are connected 
with religion. I see not that the inferences arising 
from an event, are entitled to any influence in 
changing the amount of evidence necessary to its 
proof. Whether an evangelist be worthy of de- 
pendence, when he relates the works of Jesus, is a 
question of testimony to be determined by the same 
de<^ree of proof as should satisfy us as to the aecu- 



LECTURE IV. 1 1 7 

racy and honesty of any other writer, on any other 
subject of history. But we have no disposition to 
complain that so much has been demanded in evi- 
dence of the Gospel narrative. It has only served 
to quicken the investigations of the friends of truth, 
and to exhibit, with a more impressive assurance, 
those great events, on which ail that is precious in 
a Christian's faith is founded. It has showed, not 
only how amply, but how wonderfully the God of 
truth and grace has made the anchor of our hope 
to be sure and stedfast. It teaches how, in the 
hands of Divine Wisdom, the wrath of man is made 
subsidiary to the praise of God ; how the fiery darts 
of the wicked are not only broken against the shield 
of faith, but made the means of increasing the light 
by which the Christian is guided, and often of car- 
rying back confusion into the ranks of the enemy. 
It should lead the believer to adore, with admiring 
gratitude, the goodness of Him who, for the sake 
of those that love Him, causes all the schemes and 
assaults of unbelievers to work together for good ; 
making it more and more manifest, by the defeat of 
every new attack, that this is " the true light" — 
** the shining light, which shineth more and more 
unto the perfect day." 

Had we time, or were it needful, to enter upon a 
particular view of the authenticity and credibility of 
the Old Testament volume, this would be the place 
for the argument. But we have room only to ad- 
vert to it. The connection between the truth of the 
Christian scriptures and that of the Jewish is so 
obvious and essential ; the dispensation of Christ 
so continually assumes the divine authority of that 
of Moses, and is so evidently built on its founda- 
tions ; the writings of the apostles so frequently 
quote and refer to the Law and the Prophets, as 
authentic, credible, and inspired scriptures ; the 
argument for the books of the Old Testament is so 



118 LECTURE V. 

parallel, in its mode and means, to that for the 
books of the New ; and the cavils of sceptics, in 
relation to the former, are so similar in objection, 
principle, and reasoning, to those with which they 
assail the latter; that, in having established the 
authenticity and credibility of the one, we may be 
fairly said to have done the same, in outline, for 
the character of the other. Certain we are, that 
one who is intelligently convinced of the authen- 
ticity and credibility of the New Testament, will 
not halt between two opinions as to the writings of 
Moses and the Prophets, but will read them as as- 
suredly the writings of those whose names they bear; 
and deserving, in relation to all matters of fact, the 
character of credible scriptures. 



LECTURE V. 

MIRACLES. 

Our last lecture was on the credibility of the 
GOSPEL HISTORY. In a previous one we ascertained 
the AUTHENTICITY of the books in which it is con- 
tained. If the evidence adduced in proof of both 
these fundamental articles appeared as satisfactory 
to the hearers as to the speaker, we are then pre- 
pared to open the New Testament with the assur- 
ance that the books it contains were written by 
those original disciples whose names they bear ; and 
that we may confidently depend on the historical 
correctness of their statements. The seals, there- 
fore, of the volume are now unloosed. Imme- 
diately on inspecting the contents, it appears that 
the grand and continual reference is to Jesus Christ, 
as a Teacher and Saviour sent from God, to com- 
municate personally, and by his apostles, a reve- 
lation of truth and duty to man. This revelation. 



LECTURE V. 119 

the New Testament professes to contain. Now, the 
grand question is, luhat are the evidences that the 
religion contained in the New Testament is a di- 
vine revelation ? 

When an ambassador from a foreign power pre- 
sents himself at our seat of government, charged 
with certain communications from his sovereign, he 
first exhibits his credentials of appointment. These 
being satisfactory, whatever he may communicate^ 
in his official character, is received with as much 
reliance as if it were heard from the lips of his 
sovereign himself. It is treated as a revelation of 
the mind or will of that sovereign. In .the New 
Testament we read that our Lord Jesus Christ ap- 
peared among men as an ambassador from God, 
charged with certain important proposals to the 
world. Before we can be justified in receiving them, 
as a divine revelation, we musi know the credentials 
of the ambassador; we must have sufficient evi- 
dence that he was sent of God. Furnish this, and 
we are bound to receive his communications, as 
confidently as if they should be heard directly from 
the throne of the Most High. Thus the Jews said 
to him ; " What sign showest thou, that we may 
see and believe thee? What dost thou work?'** 
The Saviour, admitting the propriety of the demand, 
ap.pealed to his works, as his credentials. ''The 
works that I do, they bear witness of me." On 
another occasion, he called up his miracles. " The 
blind (said he) receive their sight, the lame walk, 
the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, and the dead 
are raised up/'f As if he had said: '' Such works can 
only be done by the direct and supernatural interposi- 
tion of the power of God. They are done at my word 
and will. They are therefore a perfect attestation 
that God is with me, and that |ny claim to your 
confidence as His ambassador is true.'' Nicodemus 
* John vi. 30— ii. 18. t Mat. xi. 5. 



120 LECTURE V. 

understood this, and expressed no other than the 
plain dictate of common sense, when he said to 
Jesus : ** We know that thou art a teacher come 
from God, for no man can do these miracles which 
thou doest, except God be with him/'* The cre- 
dentials of the apostles, as subordinate agents of 
divine revelation, are expressed in like manner : 
** God also bearing them witness, both with signs and 
wonders, and with divers miracles, and gifts of the 
Holy Ghost."t None can question the absolute 
certainty of such credentials. This has been acknow- 
ledged even by the most famous advocates of infi- 
delity. Woolston says: '* I believe it will be 
granted on all hands, that the restoring a person 
indisputably dead to life is a stupendous miracle, 
and that two or three such miracles, well attested, 
and credibly reported, are enough to conciliate the 
belief that the author of them was a divine agent, 
and invested with the power of God/'| Make good, 
therefore, the evidence that the Saviour and his 
apostles wrought miracles in attestation of their di- 
vine mission, and the christian religion, as contained 
in the New Testament, and taught by them, must be 
a divine revelation. 

Our course, therefore, is plain. We must inquire 
into the evidence on which it can be established, that 
the Saviour and his apostles did work miracles. 
To this inquiry we should proceed immediately, were 
It not for the peculiar circumstances which meet us 
in the way. The adversaries of the Gospel have had 
sufficient acumen to see, that either the evidence 
of miracles must be overthrown, or thev must sur- 
render the contest. Unable to nveet the direct and 
abounding testimony by which the wonderful works of 
Christ and his apostles are proved, they have taken 
position ,and entrenched themselves upon the advanced 

* John iii. 3. t Heb. ii. 4. 

X Scheme of Literal Prophecy, pp. 321, 322. 



LECTURE V. 121 

and desperate ground of the insufficiency of any 
testimony to prove a miracle. Thus we have a 
redoubt in our way, commanding the whole field of 
controversy, which, though easily carried when pro- 
perly assailed, would be of great damage if left in 
our rear. The present lecture will be occupied, 
therefore, with the discussion of certain preliminary 
subjects,^ anticipating a direct application to the evi- 
dence of miracles in our next. We commence 
with the following proposition. 

L There is nothing unreasonable or improbable in 
the idea of a miracle being wrought in proof of a 
divine revelation, I know not but that all persons, 
of ordinary information, have a sufficiently correct 
idea of what is meant by a miracle, without the aid 
of a definition. No one would mistake the restoration 
of sight to the bhnd by the use of human skill, 
however wonderful it might be considered, for a 
miracle. No one could mistake the sudden com- 
munication of sight to one born blind, at the mere 
word of another, without any intervening cause, for 
any thing else than a miracle. The former resirlt, 
though astonishing, would be according to the com- 
mon course of nature, or to what are called the laws 
of nature. The latter would be beyond, or different 
from those laws. One would be a natural, the 
other a supernatural event, or a miracle,* 

Now, the idea of a revelation from God, and the 
idea of a miracle to attest the divine commission of 
those who make it, are essentially connected. If 
one or more individuals be sent to communicate the 
revelation, they must prove their mission by some 
credentials. What can their credentials be, but mi- 
racles ? The necessity of these will be evident from 
a little consideration. They can appeal to but three 
sorts of proof; the internal excellence and fitness 

* Gregory*s Letters, i. 167. Amer. Edit. 



122 LECTURE V. 

of their communications ; their own integrity and 
judgment ; and the miraculous works attendant on 
their ministry. With regard to the two former, it is 
manifest that, in the most favourable circumstances, 
they would need too much time, and evidence, and 
discrimination, for their own establishment; and 
would always remain of a character too uncertain 
to permit their being used with any effect in proof 
of a divine revelation. They would answer well as 
auxiliaries ; but would require something of a much 
more positive nature to sustain the chief burden of 
proof. The claim to be received as a messenger of 
God, for the purpose of making a revelation to the 
world, could never be substantiated on such grounds. 
Evidence is needed which all minds may appreciate. 
It must be something that has only to be seen, to 
be understood and acknowledged. When a pleni- 
potentiary presents himself at the seat of government, 
entrusted with certain communications from a foreign 
power, of great importance on both sides, and re- 
quiring to be immediately acted upon, it would not 
answer for him to plead, in evidence of his delegated 
authority, that his personal integrity is unimpeached, 
and his communications are such as might be ex- 
pected from his government. The time for action 
would be lost while such proof was establishing. 
He must exhibit credentials which carry on their 
face the direct evidence of his commission. He must 
show the broad seal of his sovereign stamped upon 
their handwriting. So must an ambassador from 
God. What then can he show but miracles ? What 
else can set to his communications the seal of 
God ? The persons concerned must show a sign 
from heaven. *' In fact, the very idea of a reve- 
lation includes that of miracles. A revelation can- 
not be made but by a miraculous interposition of 
Deity/'* 

* Gregory's Letters, 



LECTURE V. 123 

So that the idea of miracles can be unreasonable 
or improbable only so far as it is unreasonable or 
improbable that God should commission one or more 
persons to make a revelation of his truth and will. 
That such a revelation was needed in the world at 
the time when Christ appeared, can be denied only 
by asserting that the additional hght now possessed, 
in consequence of the Gospel, is superfluous and 
useless. This denial can only be maintained by 
showing that the world, sunk in idolatry, vice, and 
darkness, as it was universally before the Gospel 
came, had all the knowledge of God, and all the 
assurance of his will, and of the retributions of a 
future state, that were important to its happiness : 
a matter of proof, which I suppose no one here ima- 
gines to be possible. Then, if it cannot be shown 
that a revelation was not needed ; it cannot be 
proved that the idea of a revelation from a God of 
infinite goodness and mercy, was either unreasonable 
or improbable. But a revelation can be attested 
only by miracles. They are inseparable. Conse- 
quently, in the idea of miracles being wrought in 
proof of divine revelation, there is nothing either 
unreasonable or improbable. 

It would not be difficult to show, that in the cir- 
cumstances of the world at the christian era, a reve- 
lation was not only probable, but necessary ; and, 
by manifest consequence, that miracles, as its ne- 
cessary attestations, were also not only probable, but 
necessary. Having thus endeavoured to show that 
there is no presumptive evidence against a miracle, 
except as it lies equally against a revelation ; and 
that the one is probable, in proportion as the other 
may be expected ; let us proceed to our second 
proposition. 

II. If miracles were wrought in attestation of the 
mission of Christ and his apostles, they can he ren- 
dered credible to us by no other evidence than that 



124 LECTURE V. 

of testimony. There are various descriptions of evi- 
dence, as the evidence of sense — the evidence of 
mathematical demonstration — the evidence of tes- 
timony. Each of these has its own department of 
subjects. A question of morals cannot be demon- 
strated by mathematics, or proved by the senses. A 
question of historical fact can be settled only by 
testimony. It might as well be put to the tests of 
chemistry, as to have applied to it either the evidence 
of mathematical demonstration, or of the senses. 

Not only is there a separate department for each 
of these species of evidence ; but each is sufficient, 
in its appropriate place, for the complete establish- 
ment of truth. By this I mean, that when the 
quantity of an angle is proved by mathematical de- 
monstration, we have a result of no more practical 
confidence than when the existence of this house is 
proved by the senses, or that of the city of London is 
proved by testimony. Proof in either case is the 
foundation of entire belief. We are just as certain 
that such a man as Napoleon once lived, as that 
any proposition in geometry is true — though one is 
a matter of testimony, the other of demonstration. 
We are quite as sure that arsenic is poisonous, as 
that food is nutritious — though one is, to most of 
us at least, a matter of testimony only ; while the 
other is, to all, a matter of sense. We are perfectly 
certain of all these things. 

It is likely that some minds are led into erro- 
neous notions of the comparative conclusiveness of 
testimony on one side, and that of mathematical 
demonstration and of the senses on the other, on 
account of the technical name by which the former 
is distinguished in philosophical discussions.* It is 
called probable evidence. It would seem to some 
as if, because probable, it must be less satisfactory 
than the other kinds ; since in common speech, 

* Stewart's Phil, ii., p. 179. 



LECTURE V. 125 

what is merely probable is not certain. But in phi- 
losophical language, the word probable is used, not 
in distinction from certain evidence, but simply 
from that which is sensible or demonstrative, without 
reference to the measure of certainty attached to it. 
Thus, our belief that the sun will rise to-morrow, or 
that we are all to die, or that London was once vi- 
sited with a dreadful plague, is founded on what is 
CdWedi probable evidence; though we should be sus- 
pected of lunacy, did we question the propriety of 
acting upon it with perfect assurance. Such, then, 
being the sufficiency of testimony to convey a per- 
fect assurance of any thing in its appropriate sphere, 
however distant in point of time or place ; I return 
to the proposition that, if miracles were wrought by 
Christ and his apostles, they can he rendered cre- 
dible to us, of the nineteenth century, by no other 
evidence than that of testimony. Mathematical 
evidence is clearly inapplicable to the question. 
It is a matter of fact belonging to another century, 
and therefore intangible by sense. Nothing re- 
mains but testimony. This is perfectly appropriate 
to the question. If, therefore, the Gospel miracles 
are true, they must be substantiated by testinaony, or 
not at all. We proceed to the next proposition. 
. III. Miracles are capable of being proved by tes- 
timony. This I consider as true and obvious as that 
miracles are capable of being proved by the evi- 
dence of the senses. That a certain person was 
dead and buried yesterday, and that he is alive and 
walking the streets to-day — the senses are perfectly 
competent to decide. I never heard of this being 
questioned. But if I and twenty others saw these 
facts, is there no way of making them credible to 
my neighbour who did not see them ? Will it be 
pretended, that if twenty men of unquestionable 
honesty and intelligence, should solemnly, and by 
every means of conviction in their power, assure me 



126 LECTURE y. 

that they saw the man dead, buried, and in cor- 
ruption, I would have no sufficient reason to believe 
their assertion ? Will it be pretended, that if the 
same men should in the same way assure me, that 
subsequently they saw the same man alive, and 
conversed with him ; I would have no reason to 
believe their assertion? I think there are none 
among us who could avoid belief in such a case. It 
would evidently be a case of miracle, believed on 
testimony; and to maintain that it would be be- 
lieved without reason, and that no conceivable addi- 
tion of honest testimony could furnish reason for 
the belief of those two simple facts, that the man 
was dead yesterday, and is alive to-day, would 
seem an absurdity too gross to be toudied by argu- 
ment. 

Here I should leave the matter, confident in the 
common sense of my hearers, were it not that the 
very absurdity in view, has been so mystified by 
the skill of false philosophy, so disguised under 
the dress of logical forms and ceremonies, and so 
sustained, in its circulation, by the influence of 
one of the chief names in modern scepticism — as to 
perplex many minds, unaccustomed to the entan- 
glements of sophistry. The principle, that no con- 
ceivable amount of testimony can prove a miracle, 
with David Hume for its original champion, has 
been eagerly adopted by the many whose conve- 
nience makes them unbelievers, but whose conve- 
nience it would not suit to attempt an honest, manly, 
answer to the abounding testimony by which the 
miracles of the Gospel are proved. A labour-saving 
machine was wanted, by which the whole business 
of silencing the inconvenient variety and trouble- 
some multitude of christian evidences might be 
effected at once, as well by the ignorant as the learned. 
Hume invented it. Any body can work it. It is 
not necessary, any more, that a man should study 



LECTURE V. 127 

the Bible, to refute its claims. He may never have 
seen it ; but if he can only retain in his memory 
these few talismanic words, '' No testimony can 
prove a miracle,'' it is enough. At the rubbing of 
this marvellous lamp, the fabric of Christianity passes 
away. The terrible genii of the Gospel mysteries 
dissolve in air. Like a similar assertion, and 
equally philosophical doctrine of the same writer, 
that there is no external world — that this house is 
nothing but an idea, built not of matter, but only of 
Yiiind — this happy invention of sceptical ingenuity 
digs so far below the foundations of all truth and 
common sense, that the man whose convenience 
bids him use it, may feel assured that not many 
advocates of Christianity will descend low enough 
to spoil him of his consolation, 

A brief attention to this matter will not be out of 
place at present. 

The argument of the writer referred to, is 
abridged, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica, as fol- 
lows : " Our belief of any fact from the testimony 
of eye-witnesses is derived from no other principle, 
than our experience of the veracity of human tes- 
timony. If the fact attested be miraculous, there 
arises a contest of two opposite experiences, or proof 
against proof. Now, a miracle is a violation of the 
laws of nature ; and, as a firm and unalterable ex- 
perience has established these laws, the proof 
against a miracle, from the very nature of the fact, 
is as complete as any argument from experience 
can possibly be imagined ; and if so, it is an unde- 
niable consequence, that it cannot be surmounted 
by any proof whatever, derived from human testi- 
mony.'' 

Now, all this is very conclusive, provided we ad- 
mit its premises. The grand hinge of the whol^ 
is this, that our belief in testimony is founded on 
no other principle than our experience of the 



128 LECTURE V. 

VERACITY OF iiUxMAN TESTIMONY. Hence the rea- 
soning is, that a miracle being, in the author's esti- 
mation, contrary to experience, opposes and con- 
tradicts the very foundation of its evidence, and 
therefore destroys itself. But let me ask. Admitting 
that a miracle is contrary to experience, (which is 
not true,) ivhat experience is it contrary to ? The 
argument requires that it should be contrary to our 
experience of the veracity of hmnan testimony. 
To say merely that it is contrary to experience of 
some sort, without specifying this particular sort, 
does not touch the question. It is its contrariety to 
that particular kind of experience, ' on which our 
faith in testimony (according to Hume) is built, that 
must destroy the credibility of a miracle, if it is to 
be destroyed at all. But this, it would be ridiculous 
to assert. So far from miracles being inconsistent 
with our experience of the veracity of human tes- 
timony; the truth is directly on the other side. 
Deny that miracles were ever wrought, and your 
whole experience of the truth of testimony is di- 
rectly and violently opposed. 

But again — Is our belief in testimony founded 
in our experience of its veracity ? Prove that it 
is not, and the whole argument of our author is un- 
dermined. The proof is easy. None depend more 
absolutely upon testimony than those whose expe- 
rience is almost a nullity. Children are perfer^t 
believers in its veracity. All writers on the philo- 
sophy of the mind, but the one before us, consider 
it an original principle of nature, that we should rely 
on testimony, until there is proof, either of suspi- 
cious competency to know, or of suspicious honesty 
to speak, the truth. This principle is necessary to 
human nature, long before any experience can be 
gathered up. Without it, how could children begin 
to learn ? How could they avoid poison, or receive 
; wholesome food, if they niust wait for an experience 



LECTURE V. 129 

of the veracity of their parents, and nurses, and 
teachers, before they can believe what they testify ? 
The plain truth is, that instead of experience being 
our whole dependence for the credibility of tes- 
timony, it is just the school that makes us some- 
times suspicious of that credibility. It teaches us 
that testimony may be false, and furnishes the 
characteristics by which we may distinguish between 
that which is suspicious, and that which may be 
confidently relied on. We deny, therefore, and with 
evident reason, the whole foundation of the argu- 
ment we are considering. 

But again. Another essential hinge in this 
argument is, the assertion that a miracle, being, 
as the author defines it, *' a violation of the laws of 
nature," is contrary to experience. Here we might 
deny that a miracle is a violation of the laws of 
nature. It is only a deviation from those laws, or 
from the customary mode of the Divine operations. 
But, waiving this, what is meant by a miracle being 
contrary to experience ? Have we, or others, ever 
experienced the opposite of any of the miracles of 
Christ ? I cannot conceive how this could be, unless 
we had been on the spot when the miracle is said to 
have taken place, as when Lazarus is said to have 
risen from the dead ; and, instead of seeing him rise, 
had seen him continue dead. That is the only way 
in which I can conceive of opposition between expe- 
rience and a miracle. The resurrection of Lazarus 
is not contrary to my experience, any more than a 
volcano is contrary to it. All I can say of either, in 
this respect, is, that I have never experienced it. It 
is beyond, not in opposition to, my experience. 

But when our author asserts that miracles are 
contrary to experiejice, what are we to understand f 
Does he mean one's own personal experience? or 
the experience of all mankind ? If the former, then 
it would follow that testimony can render no event 

K 



130 LECTURE V. 

credible to us which we have not personally expe- 
rienced. But this would be too sweeping, even for 
the most absolute scepticism. On this ground, a 
native of the torrid zone might refuse the testimony 
of the rest of the world in evidence of the fact that 
water in winter is so congealed that we can drive our 
carriages upon its surface. He need only say, 
" It is contrary to my experience. I have never 
seen it, and therefore no testimony can make it 

credible."* 

But does our author mean to be understood, as 
affirmint' that miracles are contrary to the experience 
of all mankind ? His argument will then stand as 
follows : " Belief in testimony is founded on expe- 
rience. But miracles are contrary to the experience 
of all mankind. They contradict, therefore the 
credibility of testimony, and cannot be proved by 
it " But this is a manifest assumption of the whole 
question. Whether miracles are contrary to the 
experience of all mankind, is the precise point in 
debate. We assert that mankind, m different ages 
and places, have experienced them. Our author is 
at liberty, if he pleases, to assert the contrary. But 
it is too much to expect us to receive his assertion, 
until it is proved. And if his argument cannot be 
sustained without thus taking for granted, in one of 
its premises, what it seeks to demonstrate in the 
conclusion, its correctness is certainly very sus- 

^' The'' admission of the principle on which the 
argument under consideration is founded, would 
lead to perfect absurdity. "There was a time 
when no^one was acquainted with the laws of 

magnetism ; these suspend, in ""^nY /"^t^^^^tnln in 
laws of gravity; nor can I see, upon the P"nc.ple in 
question, how the rest of mankind could have 
On Hume's argument, in general, see the references in 
Home's Introd., vol. i. p. 243. 



LECTURE V. 131 

credited the testimony of their first discoverer ; and 
yet to have rejected it, v^ould have been to reject 
the truth. But that a piece of iron should ascend 
gradually from the earth, and fly at last with an 
increasing rapidity through the air, and, attaching 
itself to another piece of iron ore, should remain 
suspended, in opposition to the action of its gravity, 
is consonant to the laws of nature. I grant it ; but 
there was a time when it was contrary, I say not to 
the laws of nature, but to the uniform experience of 
all preceding ages and countries ; and at the parti- 
cular point of time, the testimony of an individual or 
of a dozen individuals, who should have reported 
themselves eye-witnesses of such a fact, ought, 
according to the argumentation (of Mr. Hume) to 
have been received as fabulous. And what are 
those laws of nature, which, according to this writer, 
can never be suspended ? Are they not different to 
different men, according to the diversities of their 
comprehension and knowledge ? And if any one of 
them (that, for instance, which rules the operations 
of magnetism or electricity) should have been known 
to you, or to me alone, whilst all the rest of the 
world were unacquainted with it ; the effects of it 
would have been new and unheard-of in the annals, 
and contrary to the experience, of mankind, and 
therefore ought not in your opinion to have been 
believed."* If this be the legitimate result of the 
principle in question ; if no testimony could have 
rendered the phenomena of magnetism credible, in 
the dawn of knowledge on that subject, because 
they were contrary to experience ; it is evident that 
a certain truth and Hume's principle would have 
been, in that case, directly in opposition. But 
whether the experience of mankind be opposed by 
phenomena above the laws of nature — miracles— ov 
by phenomena, which, though in reality according 

* Bishop Watson. 
k2 



J32 LECTURE V. 

to those laws, are perfectly new, an<J, to all human 
Tiew, inconsistent with the established order of 
nature, is of no consequence to the argument. 
Experience is opposed in both cases alike It 
cannot be less absurd in one than m the other, to 
maintain, that because the phenomena have never 
been experienced, no testimony can make them 

credible. ,^ -1.11 ■»„ ,,, 

But if the argument of Hume, with all its as- 
sumptions, and false statements, and equivocal ex- 
pressions, were true ; it would prove not only tha 
miracles cannot be proved by testimony but that 
they cannot be proved at al . Now, that . is pos- 
sible for God to work a miracle, none will deny. 
Consequently, that it is possible that the miracles 
related in the New Testament are true, none will 
deny. Suppose them to be true, how can they be 
proved to us ? If testimony will not do, what re- 
mains? Mathematical evidence-the evidence of 
the senses-are perfectly inapplicable. But there 
is no other description of evidence. If, therefore, 
those miracles are to be proved to us, it must be 
done by some species of evidence not now in exist- 
ence entirely foreign to the laws of nature. In 
oE wo^ds. It must^ be miraculous Miracle must 
be brought to prove miracle. And since no testi- 
mony, according to the principle we are consider- 
ing can prove a miracle, the very miracle which is 
£gM - Foof of those in the New Testament, 
must itself be proved by another before it can be 
believed by any who did not see it. But what an 
absurdity is here ! If Jesus did open the eyes of he 
blind who can maintain that God has no way of giving 
all generations reason to believe it without an unceas- 
ino- series of miracles in all places, for the purpose? 

There is but one way of evading this extreme and 
absurd conclusion. It must be denied that we have 
any reason to believe that God can work a miracle. 



LECTURE V. 133 

For as long as it is acknowledged to be possible that 
God, by the apostles, did work miracles, the possi- 
bility of His making them credible to us, without 
other miracles to prove them, and by the natural 
means of human testimony, must also be acknow- 
ledged ; the latter, to say the least of it, being no 
greater effort of power than the former. To this 
necessity, the sagacity of our philosopher was not 
blind. Nor does he scruple at embracing it, rather 
than give up his favourite discovery. Adverting to 
some alleged miracles, he writes : " What have we 
to oppose to such a cloud of witnesses, but the 
absolute impossibility or miraculous nature of the 
event?" In this sentence, it is evident that '' ab- 
solute impossibility,'' and '^ miraculous nature,'' are 
used as equivalent expressions. But elsewhere he 
endeavours to persuade us that there is no reason 
to suppose that a miracle is possible with God. 
*' Though the Being (he says) to whom the miracle 
is ascribed, be, in this case, Almighty, it does not, 
on that account, become a whit more probable; 
since it is impossible for us to know the attributes 
or actions of such a Being, otherwise than from the 
experience which we have of his productions, in the 
usual course of nature." This brings us directly to 
atheism. The argument runs thus. We know the 
attributes of God only by the experience of his 
works in the usual course of nature. But, accord- 
ing to our philosopher, we have no experience of a 
miracle among those works. Consequently, we 
have no knowledge that there is any divine attribute 
by which God can produce a miracle. Now, besides 
the folly of denying the possibility of a miracle, 
because nothing like it is found in the usual course 
of nature, when a miracle, by its definition, is out of 
the usual course of nature ; we have here the plain 
denial of the omnipotence of God, For if we have 
no reason to believe that God can produce an event 



1 34 LECTURE V. 

differing from and above the ordinary course of 
nature, we have no reason to suppose that he is 
Almighty ; or that he is the Sovereign of Nature ; 
or that He created, and preserves, and governs all 
things. The nature and majesty of God are denied 
by this argument. It is atheism. There is no stop- 
ping place for consistency between the first prin- 
ciple of the essay of Hume, and the last step in the 
denial of God, with the abyss of darkness for ever. 
Hume, accordingly, had no belief in the being of 
God. If he did not positively deny it, he could not 
assert that he believed it. He was a poor, blind, 
groping compound of contradictions. He was 
literally " without God and without hope f '' dot- 
ing about questions and strifes of words ;" and 
rejecting life and immortality, out of deference to a 
paltry quibble, which common sense is ashamed of. 
** An unfortunate disposition to doubt every thing,'' 
said Lord Charlemont, one of his particular friends 
and admirers, *' seemed interwoven with the nature 
of Hume, and never was there, I am convinced, a 
more thorough and sincere sceptic. He seemed not 
to be certain even of his own present existence, and 
could not, therefore, be expected to entertain any 
settled opinion respecting his future state." 

But it was very needless for our author to give 
himself so much intellectual effort as must have been 
required for the invention of this short and easy 
method of undermining the evidences of Chris- 
tianity, when he had previously produced a much 
shorter and easier plan. He had already proved, in 
his estimation, that there is no external world — 
nothing but ideas ; consequently there can be no 
external miracles — nothing but miraculous ideas. 
Why not hold to this ? It was certainly just as rea- 
sonable, just as consistent with philosophy and com- 
mon sense, as the idea that no testimony can prove 
a miracle. 



LECTURE V. 135 

But our sweeping sceptic was not quite so well 
satisfied with his arguments against all testimony 
and all sense, as would at first appear. Speaking of 
his speculations, he says : *'They have so wrought 
upon me, and heated my brain, that I am ready to 
reject all belief and reasoning, and can look upon 
no opinion even as more probable or likely than 
another. Where am I, or what ? From what 
causes do I derive my existence, and to what con- 
dition shall I return ? Whose favour shall I court, 
and whose anger must I dread ? What beings sur- 
round me, and on whom have I any influence, or 
who have any influence on me ? I am confounded 
with all these questions, and begin to fancy myself 
in the most deplorable condition imaginable, envi- 
roned with the deepest darkness, and utterly de- 
prived of the use of every member and faculty." 
A sad confession this of the satisfaction of what he 
calls ** the calm, though obscure regions of 'philo- 
sophy,^^ 

But he proceeds : " Most fortunately it happens, 
that since reason is incapable of dispelling these 
clouds, nature herself suffices to that purpose, and 
cures me of this philosophical melancholy and deli- 
rium, either by relaxing this bent of mind, or by 
some avocation and lively impression of my senses, 
which obliterates all these chimeras. I dine, I play 
a game of back-gammon, I converse and am merry 
with my friends ; and when, after three or four hours* 
amusement, I would return to these speculations, 
they appear so cold, and strained, and ridiculous, 
that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them 
any farther/' A sad exhibition this of the dignity 
and consolations of scepticism. But if Mr. Hume 
was sometimes constrained to look upon his own 
speculations as strained and ridiculous, we may be 
pardoned if they appear to us in the same aspect. 
Indeed it was more than he could do, to write, con- 



136 LECTURE V. 

sistently with theiTi, for any length of time. His 
own common sense insisted, sometimes, on the pri- 
vilege of speech ; so that, after all the show of 
reasonitig to which we have been attending ; after 
having asserted that ** a rnirade, supported by any 
human testimony, is more properly a subject of 
derision than of argument" we find him apparently 
coming to himself, and making the following most 
singular acknowledgment : *' / own there may pos- 
sibly be miracles of such a kind as to admit of proof 
from human testimony.'' He then states an imaginary 
case of miraculous occurrence, attested by a measure 
of proof which, he says, philosophers ought to 
receive as certain testimony. But how is this ? Has 
he entirely abandoned his ground ? One would 
think so. But mark his method of escape. We 
quote his words : ** But should this miracle be 
ascribed to a new system of religion, men in -all 
ages have been so imposed on by ridiculous stories 
of that kind, that this very circumstance would be 
a full proof of the cheat." Here, evidently, the 
whole ground is changed. Miracles are no more 
considered as incapable of proof by testimony. They 
are no more set at nought because contrary to expe- 
rience. It is admitted they may be proved by 
testimony, whether with object or without it, except 
when the object is religion. It is nothing, therefore, 
in the nature of a miracle, but only in its appli- 
cation, that renders it incredible. This is indeed a 
change. A miracle may be proved any where but 
in the service of a revelation from God. Bat why ? 
Because, says our author, ** men in all ages have 
been so imposed on by ridiculous stories of that 
kind.'' Now, besides that it is untrue that any re- 
ligion, but that of the Bible, ever attempted to set 
up its claims by the credentials of miracles, this is 
utter trifling. After all the metaphysical parade to 
which we have been attending ; are we brought to 



LECTURE V. 137 

this, that, because some men have been knaves and 
fools, therefore all must be such ? Can we believe 
in the sincerity of none, because hypocrites have been 
many ? Must we refuse belief in any accounts of 
physical phenomena, because men in all ages have 
been imposed on by ridiculous accounts of such 
things ? Must we decline accepting any notes issued 
by our banks, because men have so often been 
imposed on by counterfeit currency ? On the con- 
trary, counterfeit currency is positive proof that there 
is such a thing as a sound and honest currency. 
And, in like manner, the fact of spurious preten- 
sions to miracles, so far from being a reason for 
rejecting all accounts of miracles, is a strong pre- 
sumptive proof that some of them are true. An 
argument which finds itself constrained to seek re- 
fuge under the shadow of such a position as this, 
must indeed have been reduced to an extremity. 

We have dwelt on this desperate effort of the 
most noted and acute sceptic of modern times, 
much longer than was called for by any thing either 
difficult or important in itself, because it affords 
a very strong presumptive proof of the impossibility, 
by any force of talent, or skilfulness of manoeuvre, 
of breaking the solid mass of testimony by which 
the miracles of the Gospel are defended. Such a 
mind as that of the historian of England, would 
never have descended to the absurdity of denying 
the credibility of any testimony in proof of a miracle, 
had it not been that all his efforts to find a flaw in 
the testimony of those of Christianity had utterly 
failed. Show me a man endeavouring to pick his 
way through the stone wall of a prison, and I need 
not be told that he is shut up, and has despaired of 
escape by the door. 

The pains which all sceptics have taken to escape 
from being shut up to the faith of Christ, adopting 
every other conceivable method than the one simple 



138 LECTURE V. 

and equitable plan of refuting the direct evidences 
of Christianity, should be considered unequivocal 
proof that there is a force in those evidences which 
their enemies dare not encounter face to face — some- 
thing that persuades the bold champion of infidelity, 
that, in this warfare, *' discretion is the better part 
of valour,'^ 

But we cannot relinquish this division of our 
lecture, without pausing to draw a lesson from the 
scepticism of Hume. That he was a learned and 
very ingenious writer, none can deny. That he was 
much more amiable and less unexemplary in his 
temper and habits than infidel champions generally 
are, we have no disposition to question. But these 
commendations only render his case the more affect- 
ing, and his insidious sophistry the more dangerous. 
The pride of reason was his master. The praise of 
a philosopher was his idol ; to doubt what others 
believed, his habitual tendency ; to maintain a pa- 
radox against the world, his prevailing ambition. 
Under the influence of these dispositions, the very 
fact that the religion of Christ was a revelation, re- 
quiring him to sit at its feet and learUy instead of a 
theory, flattering the sufficiency of his own powers 
to discover truth, was its condemnation. The more 
it possessed the sanction of ages and of the greatest 
minds, the more did it rouse him to its rejection. 
The imposing multitude and weight of its evidences 
were the strongest stimulants of his unbelief. He 
first denied the miracles of the Gospel, and then set 
his wits to contrive some grand argument by which 
all the testimony in their favour might be under- 
mined. He reasoned himself almost out of his own 
existence, and surrounded himself with impenetrable 
darkness. The present was all contradiction, the 
future all '' an enigma," to his mind. Poor, un- 
happy philosopher ! How little his learning could 
do in the search of truth, for want of humility ! 



LECTURE V. 139 

How easily can all human knowledge and all mortal 
wisdom become foolishness, when the wise man 
leans to his own understanding, instead of acknow- 
ledging and seeking God in all his ways ! That 
Hume was accustomed to pray for guidance in his 
investigations of truth, it is impossible to suppose. 
The great fountain of light being thus denied, God 
gave him up to the devices and desires of his own 
heart. Verily, '' He taketh the wise in their own 
craftiness.*' Thus, most justly, did our philosopher 
meet with darkness in the day-time, and was per- 
mitted to grope in the noonday as in the night. 
One just view of himself as a sinner would have 
refuted and broken up his whole system of proud un- 
belief. I have known a good deal, by experience, of 
the conflict which infidels maintain behind the 
entrenchments of Hume, and other champions of 
their cause ; I have known also something, per- 
sonally, of conversions among such people ; and it 
has often astonished me to see how immediately a 
whole system of well jointed infidelity tumbles to 
pieces; how entirely the most darling argument 
against the Gospel is changed into folly, and 
given to the winds, as soon as one realizes that 
he is a sinner, and must stand before God in judg- 
ment. 

IV. Let us pass to our fourth proposition. The 
testimony in proof of the miracles of the Gospel has 
not diminished in force by the increase of age. It 
is not an uncommon idea that the transmission of 
remote events, by successive testimony, from gene- 
ration to generation, weakens their evidence in pro- 
portion to the time. It is supposed, that had we 
lived in the fourth instead of the nineteenth cen- 
tury, we should have possessed the testimonial evi- 
dence of the christian miracles in much greater 
force than it is now enjoyed. But we deny that 
there is any reason for this supposition. Mere oral 



140 LECTURE V. 

tradition must weaken with age. But written tes- 
timony cannot suffer loss as long as the genuineness 
of the document containing it is unimpaired, and 
the character of the witnesses is substantiated. 
For example : suppose it be recorded in the minutes 
of the Young Men's Society of New York, that on 
the 13th day of January, 1832, this lecture was 
delivered to its members, on the Evidences of Chris- 
tianity, and those minutes be laid up among its 
records ; and the society exist from generation to 
generation, keeping a regular account of its trans- 
actions, for 400 years ; and at the end of that time, 
some one, searching into its early papers, should 
read the minutes of the above event ; the evidence 
of the fact would be considered as conclusive, as if, 
instead of 400 years, only 50 had elapsed since 
its occurrence. The event would be as certain as 
the genuineness of the record, and would have no 
reference to the age of either. Let the society con- 
tinue 1000 years, and its records being still pre- 
served uncorrupted, the evidence will remain undi- 
minished. We rely upon the testimony in proof of 
the invasion of Britain by Julius Csesar, or of Italy 
by Hannibal, with quite as much confidence as we 
read of the wars of Charles the First in England. 
And if our present accounts of those widely remote 
events shall be preserved to the end of the world, 
the confidence of our posterity at that time in their 
historical correctness, cceteris paribus, will be as 
complete as ours. Indeed, it is only with regard 
to the facts related in the Bible, that men ever talk 
of any diminution, by the lapse of years, in the 
credibility of testimony But with how little reason 
is evident, when you remember that a matter of his- 
torical fact is of the same nature in regard to testi- 
mony, whether it be found between the covers of 
the Bible, or those of a Roman history. For pre- 
cisely the same reason that the event of this lecture, 



LECTURE V. 141 

recorded in the minutes of the Young Men's 
Society, would retain its evidence unimpaired as 
long as the Society and its minutes should exist 
together, does the testimony to the great events 
of primitive Christianity continue to this day un- 
abated.* 

The christian church is also a society which was 
in existence when the events recorded in its scrip- 
tures occurred. Its principal institutions are 
founded upon them. Our New Testament books 
are its records, which, like those of any other in- 
stitution of past ages, have been handed down from 
generation to generation. The members of the 
christian church have died from age to age, but the 
church, the society, the living keeper of these re- 
cords, the librarian of the scriptures, has never died. 
The passing away of the several individuals who, 
since the commencement of Christianity, have be- 
longed to this society, has no more to do with the 
permanence of the institution itself, than have the 
rapid changes in the particles of the hunian body 
with the permanence of the man. There is a per- 
sonal identity in the midst of continual change. 
The man of seventy is the very identical man that 
he was at twenty, though many times have the par- 
ticles composing his body been entirely changed. 
Thus the christian church in her nineteenth cen- 
tury, is the same identical society that existed under 
that name in the days of the apostles, though so 
many generations of members have lived and died. 
She is as capable of remembering the events of her 
youth, as we are of remembering the events of ours. 
The records made by her members in testimony of 
those events, and in the age of their occurrence, 
having been preserved in her possession with the 
greatest vigilance and the most zealous attachment, 
are as certain evidence at present, as when they 

* Gregory's Letters. 



142 LECTURE V. 

were written, of the facts related therein. She has 
been reading those records in her places of worship, 
in all parts of the world, ever since they were writ- 
ten ; and she knows as well that they have pre- 
served their personal identity, and, in all important 
respects, their uncorrupt, unmutilated character, as 
any of us can know that our family bibles are the 
same now as when they were purchased. Thus, I 
think, we are warranted in considering our propo- 
sition sustained, that the testimony ia proof of the 
miracles of the Gospel has not diminished in force 
hy the increase of age, ^ 

V. We proceed to our last proposition, that^ in 
being called to examine the credibility of the gos- 
pel miracles by the evidence of testimony, ive have 
a special advantage over those who were present 
to try them by the evidence of their senses, I do 
not mean that the evidence of the senses was not 
the best for the primitive age of the Gospel. The 
circumstances of the primitive teachers demanded 
it. The universal darkness of the world rendered it 
necessary. Nor do I mean that testimony is ever 
more conclusive than sense. I mean precisely what 
the Saviour said to Thomas, who, refusing to believe 
on the assurance of the other disciples that they had 
seen Jesus risen from the dead, required the evi- 
dence of his own sight and touch to convince him. 
** Thomas, (said the Lord,) because thou hast seen 
me, thou hast believed. Blessed are they that have 
not seen, yet have believed.'' Here it is implied 
that they who believe the miracle of Christ's resur- 
rection on the strength of testimony, have a blessing 
beyond those whose conviction came by sight. 
This will appear from the consideration, that evi- 
dence obtained by investigation, and appreciated by 
reflection, is more consistent with the state of pro- 
bation, and of moral discipline and responsibility in 

* Wilson's Lectures. 



LECTURE V. 143 

which we are placed, than evidence forced upon us 
by the involuntary agency of the senses. 

We are under trial and discipline, as well as to 
our understanding, as our conduct. We are respon- 
sible as well for what we believe, as what we do. 
Precisely the same causes that would persuade a 
man to immoral practice, may persuade him to im- 
moral principle. The same disposition that would 
induce him to disobey the precepts, may lead him 
to deny the doctrines and evidences of the Gospel. 
It is therefore his trial, in part, whether in forming 
his opinion of religious truth, he will so resist evil 
example and prejudice, and so deny himself the 
influence of all sinful inclinations and partialities, 
as to enter with honest candour upon the investi- 
gation of what he ought to believe and do, with a 
full determination to embrace the truth wherever it 
may appear. Now, with the nature and responsibility 
of this probationary condition, tl>e evidence of tes- 
timony in proof of the christian miracles is specially 
consistent. Did those miracles appear before us, 
as once for special reasons they did before multi- 
tudes, forcibly arresting our senses — not only com- 
pelling attention, but almost compelling submission, 
by the palpable and amazing evidences attending 
them— it is evident that there would remain com- 
paratively but little room for any freedom of niind 
or will, and consequently for any moral probation. 
Liberty of will and of decision would be suspended 
in proportion to the degree in which the senses 
should be directly and impressively addressed. But 
the miracles of the Gospel addressing, not our senses, 
but our minds, through the medium of testimony, 
possess a degree of evidence which, while amply 
sufficient to satisfy all who examine it with suitable 
impartiality, is not*^ so overcoming but that one may 
reject it, if he choose ; not so irresistible, but that 
persons of indolence and indifference, or of pride 



144 LECTURE V. 

and prejudice — persons who examine to refute it, 
more than to ascertain its truth, or whose habits and 
dispositions set them in direct opposition to the holi- 
ness of the gospel — may receive their reward in being 
allowed to continue unconvinced. They are thus 
dealt with in a way peculiarly consistent with their 
character as moral and accountable agents. 

The exercise of an active solicitude for the dis- 
covery of truth, thus presented, and of a fair, impar- 
tial consideration of its evidence before conviction, is 
as truly an exercise of morality, as much an act of 
moral discipline and of a correct temper of mind, as 
a correct religious practice would be in one already 
convinced. It is also as really an exhibition of im- 
morality and dissoluteness to manifest a spirit of 
indifference, or of prejudice, or aversion, in relation 
to a matter of such infinite importance, as if one 
should display the same spirit in regard to the most 
necessary duties of moral living. ** Thus, that reli- 
gion is not intuitively true, but a matter of deduction 
and inference ; that a conviction of its truth is not 
forced upon every one, but is left to be by some col- 
lected with a heedful attention to premises; this as 
much constitutes religious probation, as much affords 
opportunity for right and wrong behaviour, as any 
thing whatever."* It tests the heart of the inquirer. 

But to illustrate our doctrine, take the case of one 
who is disposed to put religion away from him; who 
comes to its evidences with a decided wish that it 
may appear untrue, and examines them under strong 
aversions and prejudices. Suppose him suddenly 
arrested by the sight of a miracle wrought in his pre- 
sence, so that, in spite of all his dislikes and evil dis- 
positions, he cannot escape believing. Take then 
the case of another, bearing a precisely similar cha- 
racter, who, having no evidence but that of testimony, 
is obliged, either to discipline his mind into a frame 
* Butler s Analogy, p. ii. c. vi. 



LECTURE V, 145 

for candid, honest investigation ; or else hazard the 
consequences of an inquiry conducted under the 
influence of habits and tempers directly hostile to the 
clear view and impartial acknowledgment of truth. 
Suppose him to choose the latter alternative, and 
that he is permitted, in reward for this voluntary 
perversion of his judgment, to continue in unbelief. 
I ask which of these individuals is treated in a way 
most consistent with his condition as a moral and 
accountable agent?* 

* '* If (says Butler) there are any persons who never set 
themselves heartily and in earnest to be informed in religion ; 
if there are any who secretly wish it may not prove true, and 
are less attentive to evidence than to difficulties, and more to 
objections than to what is said in answer to them — these 
persons will scarce be thought in a likely way of seeing the 
evidence of religion, though it were most certainly true, and 
capable of being ever so fully proved. If any accustom them- 
selves to consider this subject usually in the way of mirth, or 
sport ; if they attend to forms and representations, and inade- 
quate manners of expression, instead of the real things 
intended by them, (for signs often can be no more than inade- 
quately expressive of the things signified,) or if they substi- 
tute human errors in the room of divine truth — why may not 
all, or any of these things, hinder some men from seeing that 
evidence which really is seen by others, as a like turn of 
mind, with respect to matters of common speculation and 
practice, does, we find by experience, hinder them from 
attaining that knowledge and right understanding, in matters 
of common speculation and practice, which more fair and 
attentive minds can attain to? And in general, levity, care- 
lessness, passion, and prejudice, do hinder us from being 
rightly informed with respect to common things; and they 
may in like manner, and perhaps in some farther providential 
manner, with respect to moral and religious subjects ; may 
hinder evidence from being laid before us, and from being 
seen when it is. The scripture does declare that every one 
shall not understand. And it makes no difiference by what 
providential conduct this comes to pass; whether the evidence 
of Christianity w^as originally, and with design, put, and left, 
so that those who are desirous of evading moral obligations, 
should not see it, and that honest-minded persons should ; or 
whether it comes to pass by an}' other me^ns." — Butler's 
Analogy, p. ii. c. vi.^ ^ 

L 



146 LECTURE V. 

But besides the greater adaptation to a proba- 
tionary state, there is greater spiritual profit in the 
way by which we of later days must arrive at the 
truth of the miracles of the Gospel. Take the case 
of two christians; let one be a disciple of these days, 
and the other, Thomas, one of the apostles. They 
are equally convinced of the Saviour's resurrection, 
but by different means; Thomas, by the force of 
sight and touch; the other, by a careful, honest 
examination of the testimony we now possess. Which, 
in becoming a disciple, expressed the greater love of 
the truth? which, the greater readiness to receive 
and submft to it? Thomas had only to open his eyes, 
and reach forth his hand ; the other pursued a course 
of candid, patient, serious reflection. Thomas re- 
quired for his conviction, that the Saviour should 
stand before him, and say—" Be not faithless, but 
believing." The other went forth seeking '' the truth 
as it is in Jesus," through all the reasoning and 
objections, all the patient consideration and study, 
which circumstances placed in his way ; not demand- 
ing to be constrained by the arrest of his senses, but 
prepared to submit as soon as the testimony was 
sufficient- Now, it is plain that in this case there is 
a simplicity of heart, a love of truth, a candour in 
its pursuit, and a willingness to bow to it at all cost, 
such as are by no means implied in the conviction of 
Thomas. It is plain, also, that the moral discipline 
to which the former was subjected, and the state of 
mind involved in the mode by which he came at the 
truth, are far more conducive to his happiness, and 
afford a much higher promise of stedfast ^nd ele- 
vated attachment to the service of the truth, than if, 
like Thomas, it could be said of him, ** Because 
thou hast seen, thou hast believed." So that we may 
now acknowledge the truth of those words, " Blessed 
are they that have not seen, and yet have believed ;" 
and may repeat our proposition, that in having to 



LECTURE V. 147 

try the credibility of the Gospel miracles by the 
evidence of testimony, we are more favourably 
situated, in a very important sense, than had we 
been present to judge them by the evidence of our 
senses * 

From the whole truth exhibited in this lecture, 
we are called to adore the wisdom of God. *' His 
ways are not as our ways, neither his thoughts as 
our thoughts/* Why, in such a momentous busi- 
ness as that of religion, (demands some weak mor- 
tal,) was not truth rendered intuitively certain, so 
that the most careless could not mistake? Why, 
(asks another,) should such tremendous matters be 
necessarily settled by investigation and argument ; 
by the weight of testimony, and the records of dis- 
tant ages ; instead of bringing them at once to the 
test of every one*s experience ? ^^ Show us a signT 
is still the requisition of multitudes, who, if they 
must believe, desire to do it without trouble ; but 
would much rather be excused from both. God is 
infinitely wiser. " He knoweth whereof we are 
made." He has dignified us with reason, as well 
as sense ; and made us capable of learning by re- 
flection and study, as well as of knowing by instinct 
and necessity. He deals with us as rational beings. 
He makes us responsible for the use of our minds, 
as well as of our limbs. He requires the obedience 
of the will, the labour of our thoughts, and the close 
employment of all our intellectual and moral facul- 
ties, in order that we may know and serve him as 
becometh our natures. To this end, He has so 
constructed religion, and delivered to us its evi- 
dences, that whoever is sufficiently interested in 
His will to bestow his best thoughts and affections 
and efforts upon the work of its discovery, truly 
desirous of knowing, that he may embrace it, and 
earnestly looking up to God for protection against 
* See Saurin, on Obscure Faith. 

l2 



14b LECTURE VI. 

prejudice, and for guidance in the way of light, will 
certainly come to the knowledge of the truth, what- 
ever the grade of his intellect, and will arrive at it 
by a way most wisely adapted to make him hold 
fast and obey it. On the other hand, God has so' 
framed the Gospel, and set before us its creden- 
tials, that whether one will believe or not, is left 
to his free and voluntary choice ; his probation- 
ary character is inviolate ; his reason and his will 
are perfectly responsible. If he desire not to be- 
lieve ; if his heart revolt against the Gospel on ac- 
count of the humility, and repentance, and holiness, 
and self-denial, it demands of him; if he study 
its nature and evidence carelessly, proudly, and par- 
tially ; if he consult more the objector than the 
advocate, and try to invent reasons for unbelief more 
than arguments for the contrary ; if he love vice, 
and would retain his sins ; he may easily convince 
himself against the claims of the Gospel. God has 
left unclosed many avenues by which such a man 
may escape into infidelity. He is wisely punished 
by being permitted to go in thereat. God may 
justly take him at his word, and condemn him to 
the darkness and final misery of rejecting what he 
investigated so unjustly. It is the wisdom of God 
that His truth does not, in off^ering conviction to such 
examiners, afford, at the same time, encouragement 
to such unworthiness. 



LECTURE VL 

MIRACLES. 



Our last lecture was occupied in settling certam 
preliminaries, for the purpose of being enabled m 
this, to enter directly upon the work of weighing 
the 'testimony to the miracles of Christ and Ins 
apostles. The question to which we now proceed. 



LECTURE VI. 149 

may be stated thus : The Lord Jesus Christ claimed 
to be received as a teacher, come from God for the 
purpose of communicating a divine revelation. His 
apostles claimed to be received as his inspired and 
divinely commissioned agents in publishing that 
revelation. All appealed to miracles, as the cre- 
dentials of their embassy. None can deny that 
such credentials, plainly ascertained, are certain 
proof of the sanction of God. The appeal to 
them is, therefore, unquestionably fair. Tiie point, 
then, which remains to be determined, is : Have we 
satisfactory evidence that genuine miracles were 
wrought by the Lord Jesus Christ and his apostles? 
In answer to this question, we might proceed on 
a plan of argument which would occupy but a few 
moments. In the lecture preceding the last, we 
ascertained the credibility of the Gospel history ; in 
other words, that we have the strongest reason to 
rely implicitly on the narratives contained therein, as 
to all matters of fact. Now, it is there related, that 
on a certain occasion our Saviour was followed by 
five thousand men, into a desert place, where they 
were hungry — that all the food in his possession 
was five barley loaves, and a few small fishes — 
that of these he commanded his disciples to dis- 
tribute to the multitude; and after they had all 
eaten and were filled, the fragments remaining were 
much more, in quantity, than the original loaves and 
fishes. These are plain statements, related in the 
Gospel as unquestionable facts. The Gospel history 
being credible, they must be true. To call that a 
credible history, and then suppose it unworthy of 
reliance in such prominent particulars, would be 
absurd. But these facts constitute a miracle. There 
must have been a miraculous multiplication of the 
loaves and fishes. Consequently, in having proved 
the credibility of the Gospel history, we have proved 
that in this case a miracle was wrought. 



150 LECTURE VI. 

Thus might we proceed with regard to a great 
variety of other statements, as to the works of 
Christ and his apostles ; and I fully believe that in 
strict justice, nothing more ought to be required jn 
evidence of the Gospel miracles, than what has been 
already adduced in proof of the credibility of the 
narratives contained in the New Testament. But 
inasmuch as our object is not merely to exhibit a 
sound and conclusive argument, such as ought to 
satisfy every mind, but so to present the great 
variety and abundance of proof in support of 
Christianity, as that no attentive, candid mind, can 
help being satisfied, we will adopt a broader plan. 

Before proceeding any further, let it be remarked, 
that the religion of the Bible is the only one which, 
in its first introduction, appealed to miracles for 
evidence of the divine authority of its teachers. 
Under the religion of the Bible, I include the dis- 
pensation of Moses and that of Christ, as exhibiting 
essentially the same religion ; though more largely 
and clearly revealed under the latter than under the 
former. Both dispensations were introduced and 
sanctioned by miracles. Now, I know, it is a 
common supposition, that the same mode of attesta- 
tion was resorted to by all the false religions that 
ever gained acceptance in the world ; and that this 
was the chief cause of their ascendancy iri the 
public mind. But the truth is, that no religion, 
except that of the Bible, was ever set up by appeal 
to miracles as the credentials of its founder. We 
speak of miracles which are capable of being 
witnessed and investigated by others. It is not 
asserted that many wonderful things, of a miracu- 
lous nature, have not been pretended and boasted 
among the disciples of sundry false religions. The 
annals of paganism abound with relations of au- 
guries, and oracles, and apparitions. Many mira- 
culous, not to say ridiculous, marvels are asserted 



LECTURE VI. 151 

of Mohammed. But the remark is applicable to 
all of these things, and is of great importance in 
connection with our present object, that they were 
asserted not as proofs of religions appealing to 
them for credentials, but only as appendages of 
religions already set up, and received on considera- 
tions entirely independent of their truth or false- 
hood. It was the credit and influence of the 
established religion which gave them all their cur- 
rency; and not their evidence which established 
the religion with which they were respectively 
connected. The prodigies of heathenism, unac- 
companied as they are by any pretence of proof, 
had no manner of reference to the setting up of a 
new system of faith, or of a teacher pretending to 
a divine commission. Miraculous stories were pub- 
lished of Mohammed by writers of six and eight 
centuries after his death ; but no such pretensions 
were made by himself. On the contrary, he ex- 
pressly disclaimed miraculous powers. In the Ko- 
ran it is written of him, " Nothing hindered us 
from sending thee with miracles^ except that the 
former nations have charged them with imposture J* 
Again: ** They say^ Unless a sign he sent down unto 
him from his Lord, we will not believe ; answer, Signs 
are in the power of God alone, and I am no more 
than a public preacher. Is it not sufficient for them 
that we have sent down unto them the book of the 
Koran, to be read unto them?'* We grant that 
Mohammed did give out to the credulity of his 
followers a few marvellous doings ; but they were 
such as cannot be included under the title of sen- 
sible miracles, inasmuch as he always took the dis- 
creet precaution of having no witness but himself; 
entirely avoiding the hazardous ' experiment of 
resting the evidence of his divine mission upon the 
testimony of any eyes more disinterested than his 
own. 



152 LECTURE vr. 

But how can it. be eiccounted for, that one of 
such high pretensions — aware, as he was, of the 
success which miracles had obtained for the Gospel 
in times past — should have neglected so powerful 
a means of proselyting the world ? It was not for 
want of importunity on the part of others ; for his 
opposers were constantly teasing him with their 
demands on this head. It was not because he could 
anticipate no favourable influence from a well-sus- 
tained pretension to miracles ; for his adversaries 
assured him, even by oaths, that on the evidence 
of one such sign they would own his claims. Nor 
was it that Mohammed was too honest. The mar- 
vellous tales of the nocturnal visits of Gabriel ; of 
his own night-journey; and of the transmission, 
from time to time, of parcels of the uncreated book 
from heaven, prove what this impostor was capable 
of attempting, when allured by a prospect of suc- 
cess. Nor was it that this unequalled adventurer 
was deficient in an unusual degree of craft and ad- 
dress for the management of bold imposture. His 
whole biography would refute such an opinion. Nor 
was it that he was surrounded with a people pecu- 
liarly prepared, by knowledge and cultivated dis- 
cernment, for the detection of such frauds. The 
age was one of the darkest in the annals of man, 
and his country one of the darkest of that age. 
Nor could it have been that his cause needed no 
such auxiliary ; for the fruits of his labour, during 
the first three years, were only fourteen disciples ; 
and in ten years his cause had not advanced beyond, 
and had made but little progress within, the walls of 
Mecca. Then if Mohammed was neither too honest 
to attempt the forgery of miracles, nor too unskilful 
to manage it with cunning and address ; if his 
cause needed it, and his enemies demanded it, and 
the barbarity of the people and age favoured it ; 
no earthly reason can be given for his having dis- 



LECTURE VI. 153 

claimed the attempt, except that he considered it 
too difficult and hazardous ; too certain of detection, 
even among a barbarous, credulous, and supersti- 
tious race. The religion of the Bible is the only 
one that ever ventured on such evidence in proof of 
divine original. This single fact, united with the 
well-known truth, that, however her miracles may 
have been derided and suspected by enemies, none 
ever pretended to have discovered an imposition, is 
strong presumptive evidence that they had a reality 
which no human device could rival, a truth which 
no human scrutiny could alarm. 

In coming, therefore, to our present examination, 
we should feel that the religion of the Bible stands 
alone, not only as to the wisdom and grandeur of 
her communications, but equally so as to the bold- 
ness of her evidence, the sublimity of her creden- 
tials, and the godlike dignity with which she 
cometh to the light, that her deeds '' may be made 
manifest that they are wrought in God." 

We proceed to the testimony connected with the 
miracles of Christ. 

I. We observe, in the first place, that supposing 
the works related of the Lord Jesus to have ac- 
tually occurred, many of them must have been genu- 
ine miracles. They cannot be ascribed to natural 
causes. If five thousand men were fed, when all 
the food to feed them with, prior to the act of Jesus, 
was a few loaves and fishes ; if the centuriori's ser- 
vant was healed, at the word of Jesus, while the 
latter was nowhere within the sight, or hearing, or 
knowledge of that servant ; if the man born blind 
was made to see by no other physical act than that 
of Jesus putting clay on his eyes, and his washing 
it off in the pool of Siloam ; if Lazarus, having 
been dead four days, did come forth from the sepul- 
chre, at the word of Jesus ; then we have facts for 
which no natural causes can account. They are 



^54 LECTURE VI. 

unquestionably miracles, and we are forced to the 
alternative of either denying, in the face of all 
evidence, the truth of the statements contained in 
the Gospel history; or else acknowledging that 
miracles, in the fullest sense, were wrought at the 
word of Christ. 

II. The miracles of Christ were such as could at 
once be brought to the test of the senses. It is an 
essential requisite to a rational belief in miraculous 
agency, that one be presented with facts of such a 
nature as that the senses of those present could 
easily decide upon their reality and their super- 
natural character. Now, that the senses of the 
most ignorant were as competent as those of the 
most learned ; that the senses of any man or wo- 
man in Judea were perfectly competent to decide 
whether the son of the widow of Nain, having been 
dead and carried out to be buried, did arise and 
sit up at the word of Christ, and continue there- 
after to reside, a living man, in Nain ; that any 
one's senses were perfectly competent to judge 
whether thousands of men were fed with a few 
loaves and fishes, or the blind received their sight, 
or the lepers were cleansed, or those, notoriously 
lame from their birth, were enabled to walk at the 
bidding of Christ, it would be folly to doubt. 

III. The miracles of Christ were performed for 
the most part in the most public manner. It is the 
detracting circumstance of all the most plausible 
pretensions to miracles,, exclusive of those of the 
scriptures, that they were done in a corner, or in 
the presence only of those already inclined to be- 
lieve them, or under favour of circumstances calcu- 
lated to prevent a free examination. Just the con- 
trary is the fact with regard to a great portion of the 
wonderful works of Christ. Not only were they 
accessible to the senses of witnesses ; but to the 
senses of multitudes of witnesses, of witnesses of 



LECTURE VI. 155 

the most eager and violent enmity to the claims of 
Jesus ; witnesses of all ranks and classes in society 
— the learned and mighty, as well as the ignorant 
and feeble — the Scribes and Pharisees, the priest 
and the centurion, as well as the publicans and 
beggars. It was in the synagogues, in the streets, 
in the open fields, surrounded by thousands — in the 
midst of Jerusalem, and at the time of the great 
annual festivals, when an immense concourse of 
Jews, from all parts of the world, crowded the holy 
city — that almost all of the mighty works of Jesus 
were performed. In this way, as in other ways, he 
could say to his persecutors, *' / spake openly to the 
world'' 

His miracles were wrought upon subjects so 
numerous, in so many places, and in such circum- 
stances, as that none could suspect the cases to 
have been previously selected and prepared. What 
the condition of the subject had been before the 
miracle, thousands knew, and all could easily 
ascertain. What it was, for a long time after the 
miracle, was equally notorious. Those who w^ere 
cured of blindness, or leprosy, or lameness, or palsy, 
or who had been raised from the dead, did not die 
immediately after, nor hide themselves from public 
inspection >► but continued jto go in and out among 
the people, as living examples of the power of 
Christ. The grave of Lazarus was surrounded 
with unbelieving Jews. They saw him come forth. 
They had as much opportunity, as disposition, to 
find out whether it was Lazarus or some one else ; 
whether the man was alive, or only pretending to 
be alive. Instead of being immediately snatched 
from their view, he was seated some time after as 
one of the guests at a supper, in Bethany ; and so 
well known was the fact, that ** much people of the 
Jews" came to the place, to have a sight of one who 
had been raised from the dead. '^ The chief priests 



156 LECTURE VI. 

consulted that they might put him to death, because 
that, by reason of him, many of the Jews went away 
and believed on Jesus." 

IV. The miracles of Christ and his apostles were 
very numerous, and of great variety. It has been 
a characteristic of all cases of imposture, that the 
wonderful works pretended to were but few in 
number, and of great sameness. The sect of the 
Jansenists, in the church of Rome, pretended to 
miracles at the tomb, and by the posthumous in- 
tercessions, of the Abbe Paris. But, besides the 
want of evidence that any of the facts recorded 
v^ere miraculous, they were neither numerous nor 
various. Could this be said of the works of Christ, 
it would deprive them of one of the most palpable 
evidences of the fearless integrity in which they 
were wrought. But his history is full of miracu- 
lous works. Besides about forty that are related 
at large, we frequently meet with such accounts 
as this : " His fame went throughout all Syria, and 
they brought unto him all sick people that were taken 
with divers diseases and torments, and those which 
were possessed with devils, and those which were 
lunatic, and those that had the palsy, and he healed 
themJ^ Similar declarations are made as to the 
miracles of the apostles. As, for example, in Acts, 
v. 16 : " There came also a multitude out of the 
cities round about unto Jerusalem, bringing sick 
folks, and them which were vexed with unclean 
spirits ; and they were healed every one." 

But the miracles of the Saviour and his apostles 
were also of great variety. It was not disease of 
one or two classes only that Jesus removed, but 
disease of all kinds. Not diseases only, but all 
kinds of human calamity, departed at his will. 
Even death surrendered his captives at his com- 
mand. The blind from their birth ; the hopeless 
leper ; those that were lame from the womb ; those 



LECTURE VI. 157 

that had long been bowed down with infirmity ; the 
withered, the palsied, the insane— all were alike 
delivered of their affliction. On two occasions, 
thousands were fed with a mere pittance of food. 
Thrice, beside. the instance of his own resurrection, 
did Jesus raise the dead. A corresponding variety 
characterizes the works of his apostles. 

V. It is a matter of great importance to remark, 
that, amidst all this variety, the success in every 
instance was instantaneous and complete. The sick 
were perfectly healed. The deaf, and blind, and 
lame were perfectly delivered from their infirmities; 
the leper was entirely cleansed ; the dead arose, not 
merely to life, but to health and strength. These 
effects were as immediate as they were perfect. 
No sooner was the voice spoken, or the thing done 
that was required of the applicant, than all was 
finished. Did Jesus say, '* Let there be light?" 
there was light; ** let there be health?'' there was 
health. He left no time for second causes to 
operate — no room for human means to intervene. 
" He spake, and it was done. He commanded, 
and it stood fast." 

VI. There is no evidence of an attempt, on the 
part of Christ or his apostles, to perform a miracle 
in which they were accused of having failed. It is 
notoriously true of the wonderful works ascribed to 
the tomb of the Abbe Paris, for example, that the 
eases in which any beneficial effects resulted to 
the applicants were very inconsiderable in number, 
compared with those in which there was a manifest 
and total failure. But although the ministry of 
Christ lasted between three and four years, during 
which he was continually resorted to by multitudes, 
with a great variety of cases, seeking his miraculous 
aid; and although the ministry of his apostles 
continued many years longer, during which time 
they are said to bave been attested by " divers 



158 LECTimE VI. 

miracles/* no case is mentioned in which an attempt 
was unsuccessful, or in which an applicant was 
denied. The language of the history in relation to 
the multitudes that applied to Christ is continually, 
" he healed them all." The enemies of the Gospel, 
who were eye-witnesses of these applicants, did never 
maintain that the power of Christ, or of his disciples, 
was exerted unsuccessfully in a single instance. 
Had such an event taken place, would they not 
have discovered it ? Had they discovered it, would 
they not have proclaimed it far and wide ? Would 
any of the books, written against Christianity in the 
first centuries, have omitted so important a fact? 
The total absence of all insinuation of such a 
thing, in the whole controversy between the primitive 
christians and their adversaries, is certain evidence 
that an unsuccessful attempt was never made, and 
that an unsuccessful applicant was not known. 

Now, on the supposition that the miraculous 
doings recorded in the Gospel were all a cheat, 
what a miracle is here ! Think of the multitude of 
cases on which the powers of the Saviour and his 
disciples were tested. Think of the great variety 
of places and circumstances in which they were put 
to the test. Think of the many who operated in 
this way ; and that they did so, not while together 
to help one another, but frequently when they were 
widely scattered over the earth. Think, also, that 
the multitude of cases were extemporaneous — inca- 
pable of being anticipated or prepared for ; that the 
effects were instantaneous ; that they were perfect — 
the lame, and blind, and dumb, and withered, being 
blessed, not only immediately y but perfectly; so 
that nothing remained but to praise God. Now, 
that all was contrivance, and imposture, and acci- 
dent, and yet not an enemy ever detected an instance 
of failure ; that the machinery was never out of 
place, out of time, or out of order; that it was 



LECTURE VI. L59 

equally successful in all cases, equally ready at all 
seasons, always invisible, yet always at hand, and 
always instantaneously effectual — what a miracle ! 
Who is the man of weak credulity ? — the believer, or 
che infidel ? 

VII. The length of time, during which the Sa- 
viour and his apostles professed to perform miracles, 
should be specially considered. Seventy years 
elapsed between the commencement of the ministry 
of Christ and the death of the last of the apostles. 
During all this interval, the miraculous gifts, in 
question, were exercised. Now, as every repetition 
in case of imposture multiplies the dangers of 
detection, and every extension of time makes it the 
more difficult to keep up the confederated plan, it 
is no inconsiderable evidence of the genuineness of 
the miracles of the Gospel, that they continued to 
be wrought and inspected during a period of so 
many years, and yet no instance of a failure or of 
deception was ever discovered by those fierce and 
untiring enemies with which Christianity was always 
surrounded. 

This consideration is the more important when 
you reflect that the miracles were not confined to 
one or two places ; were not wrought in little 
villages, or among the poor and ignorant only — 
but that the scenes of most of them were in the 
chief cities of the Roman empire. Instead of 
remaining together in one place., or moving together 
wherever they desired to produce an impression, and 
then confining themselves to such places as might 
be most easily deceived ; the apostles, with singular 
folly, on the supposition that they were confederated 
for an imposture, separated to all parts of the 
world. They went alone to the most populous, 
polished, and enlightened cities. They put them- 
selves in the most public places of those cities ; thus 
making combination impossible, and rendering it 



160 LECTURE VI. 

perfectly miraculous that in these circumstances 
they should have fraudulently pretended for many 
years to work miracles in open daylight, and yet 
that no adversary discovered a single instance of 
miscarriage, or so much as one evidence of suspi- 
cious contrivance. 

VIII. We have the most perfect certainly that 
the miracles of the Gospel underwent, at the time 
they were wrought, and for a long time after, the 
most rigid examination from those who had every 
opportunity of scrutinizing their character. Forged 
miracles may pass current, where power and autho- 
rity, or the favourable dispositions of the people, 
protect them from too close an inspection. But let 
the power of the magistrate, the authority of public 
opinion, and the partialities of those concerned, be 
once leagued in opposition, and the imposture can- 
not escape.. Such was the league against the 
miracles in question. Never was the power of the 
state in more perfect alliance with public opinion, or 
more zealously supported by all the envy, hatred, 
and malice, of which popular feeling is capable, 
than when it set its face against the Gospel. Not 
only were these miracles exposed, by their great 
publicity, to universal examination, but they were 
of such a nature that any mind was capable of 
examining them. Not only did they present them- 
selves to the wise and the great, in the chief places 
of concourse, and in the great cities of the 
world ; but they were such as necessarily provoked 
every description of scrutiny. Being performed in 
avowed support of a religion which could not be 
successful without destroying the whole hierarchy of 
the Jews, and advancing its victories over the ruins 
of heathenism ; they roused at once into united and 
stern opposition, all the civil power of the govern- 
ments ; all the enmity of Jewish and pagan priest- 
hoods ; all the partialities, and prejudices, and 



LECTURE VI. 161 

national attachments, of all people. The enmity 
of the Scribes and Pharisees — of the doctors, and 
lawyers, and priests, of the Jews — must have been 
fired with peculiar indignation. As miracles multi- 
plied, and disciples increased, the deepest interest 
must have been awakened in rejation to them among 
all classes of society. This we know to have been 
the case. Hence it is certain that they did not 
escape the most thorough examination ; that all the 
ingenuity and diligence of contemporaries and eye- 
witnesses, animated by the strongest motives, and 
favoured by every conceivable advantage, were en- 
listed in the trial ; and this, not for a day, or a 
week, or a month, but as long as miracles were pro- 
fessed, and a hope of detection remained. 

IX. It is a matter deserving of special remem- 
brance, that the adversaries of the Gospel were placed 
in the most favourable circumstances for a thorough 
investigation of the reality of its miracles, by their 
being published and appealed to immediately after, 
and in the very places where they occurred. The 
miracles ascribed to the founder of the society of 
Jesuits are sufficiently answered by the fact that, 
during his life, and for many years after his death, 
nothing was heard of them. Those of Francis Xavier, 
one of the first disciples of Loyola, are deficient in 
evidence, because, having been wrought (as it is 
stated) in the far distant East, they were first pub- 
lished in the western world ; and the narratives, if 
they ever reached the places to which they relate, 
could not have been known there till long after the 
opportunity of a close investigation had passed away, 
and must have been published among a people too 
indifferent to be at the pains of inquiring into their 
truth or falsehood. But the miracles of the Gospel 
were published immediately after, and in the very 
places of their occurrence. It is true, indeed, that 
the earliest Gospel, that of St. Matthew, is not by 

M 



162 LECTURE VI. 

any supposed to have been published earlier than the 
seventh or eighth year after the death of Christ. 
Supposing this to have been the first publication of 
the miracles, it was sufficiently near their date to 
afford every reasonable opportunity of investigation. 

But we know from the Gospel history, that during 
the three years of the Saviour's ministry, and all the 
while the apostles laboured, their miracles were noto- 
rious. The Scribes and Pharisees met in council on 
the subject. Many, unable to deny them, ascribed 
them to demoniacal power. Herod, when he heard 
of them, said, ** This is John the Baptist; he is risen 
from the dead; and therefore mighty works do show 
forth themselves in him.*'* The fame of the miracles 
of Jesus, at the beginning of his ministry, ** went 
throughout all Syria," so that multitudes, with all 
kinds of afflictions, flocked to him from all quarters 
to be healed, and, when healed, returned to publish 
still more widely the works of their deliverer.f The 
raising of Lazarus was so widely published in Bethany, 
where it took place, and in the region round about, 
that, in a few days, ** much people of the Jews came, 
not for Jesus' sake only, but that they might see 
Lazarus also, whom he had raised from the dead.^'J: 
When, at the word of Peter and John, the impotent 
man, at the gate of the temple, had been made whole, 
they immediately published the miracle on the spot, 
to the multitude of Jerusalem; appealing to it in 
evidence of the power of their Lord. ** His name, 
(said they,) through faith in his name, hath made this 
man strong, whom ye see and know : yea, the faith 
which is by him, hath given him this perfect sound- 
ness in the presence of you allJ^\ Only about fifty 
days was Jesus risen from the dead, when his disci- 
ples began to proclaim every where, and first at Jeru- 
salem, among those who slew him, and had set the 

» Mat. xiv. 1, 2. t lb. iv. 23—25. % John xii. 9. 

§ Acts iii. 16. 



LECTURE VI. 163 

guard at the sepulchre, this chief of miracles. They 
appealed to it in every discourse; challenged every 
examination ; defied all contradiction. All the mira- 
cles of Christ, they declared before the very people 
whom they asserted to have witnessed them. ** Ye 
men of Israel, hear these words (said Peter;) Jesus of 
Nazareth, a man approved of God among you by 
miracles, and wonders, and signs, which God did by 
him in the midst ofyoUy as ye yourselves also know,''* 
How eminently this bold and immediate publication 
must have aided, as well as stimulated, the investi- 
gation of the enemies of the Gospel, furnishing those, 
who had every disposition, and all power, and all 
intelligence and cunning, with every opportunity 
to try the minutest circumstance, and ferret out 
every clue to the detection of imposture, I need not 
show. 

X. Now, consider who the agents were, whose 
works were obliged to^ stand such trials. Had they 
been men of learning, of power, of wealth, accus- 
tomed to any thing that was calculated to furnish 
them for the work of imposing upon mankind, the 
case would not be quite so strong. But, on the sup- 
position that Christ was a mere man and pretender, 
what was he or what were his apostles, by education 
or standing in society, that they should be qualified 
for such an unparalleled effort of ingenuity and con- 
cealment? Is there any miracle more marvellous 
than that which is involved in the idea of a poor and 
unlearned individual of Nazareth, followed by twelve 
obscure, unlettered Jews, for the most part accus- 
tomed to nothing but their nets and fishing-boats, 
having practised such a system of imposture, under 
such circumstances of risk and exposure, without an 
individual among their numerous enemies to discover 
their secret, or detect the deceit? 

XL Consider, moreover, that notwithstanding all 

* Acts ii. 22. 
M 2 



164 LECTURE VI. 

that was done to entice and intimidate the early 
Christians who were eyewitnesses of what Jesus or 
his apostles wrought, none were induced to confess 
themselves deceived; or that they had seen any thing 
but truth in those miraculous gifts, by which they 
had been persuaded to embrace the gospel. It is not 
asserted that none who professed to be converted 
from Judaism or paganism to Christianity, ever re- 
nounced the cause of Christ. The persecution of 
enemies was sometimes successful in forcing their 
victims to forsake the Gospel, and do sacrifice to idols, 
rather than be burned at the stake, or thrown to wild 
beasts. But the case cannot be brought, of one such 
unhappy deserter, whether man or woman, having 
been persuaded to bear witness against the christian 
miracles. A convert, after having united himself to 
the apostles, been received to the fellowship of the 
church, and become an agent in advancing its cause, 
must have become acquainted with its secrets. He 
must have often looked behind the scenes, and had 
many opportunities of knowing the hidden machi- 
nery by which the imposition, if any existed, was 
carried on. Had the evidence of contrivance and 
forgery been ever seen by the primitive Christians, 
those who deserted the cause had every motive to 
divulge it. Their own indignation at having been 
deceived, the rewards which they might have expected 
from the enemies of Christianity, would have been 
sufficiently persuasive. That none ever went a step 
further than simply to give up the profession of the 
Gospel, through fear of torture ; that none ever turned 
round upon the apostles by whose miracles they 
had been convinced, and charged them with 
fraud, is absolutely inexplicable on any other suppo- 
sition than their thorough conviction that fraud did 

not exist. 

This evidence is specially strong in the case ot 
Judas Iscariot. He was one of the twelve who 



LECTURE VI. 165 

always companied with Jesus. He was the trea- 
surer of the family— admitted to every opportunity 
of knowing whatever secrets may have belonged to 
the works of Christ. That he knew what and 
where the imposition was, if any existed in the 
Gospel miracles, cannot be doubted. That he was 
treacherous enough to betray it, is manifest from 
his having betrayed the Master himself. That he 
had every inducement to do so, none can question, 
who knows how precious the chief priests and Pha- 
risees would have considered such a disclosure. 
Did he come forward with any such thing ? He 
delivers up the person of Christ ; does he accuse 
his character ?— deny his works ?— expose his cause? 
The Saviour is arraigned before his powerful ene- 
mies — witnesses are called. Where is Judas ? False 
witnesses are brought. Where is Judas ? Has he 
nothing to say against him whom he has already 
sold for thirty pieces of silver ? The enemies of 
Christ cannot be ignorant of the importance of such 
a witness ; nor can he be ignorant of the gain that 
may accrue from his delivering such testimony. 
But he is not there. The Jews never pretended to 
have obtained any accusation from that traitor. 
Not a word is spoken, in all the controversy with 
primitive adversaries, about the treachery of Judas, 
as having turned to their advantage. On the con- 
trary, it is written in the Gospel history, and was 
never denied by those men, that he not only 
abstained from any accusation, but in the strongest 
possible manner confessed the truth and excellence 
of Jesus and his cause. Under the stings of con- 
science, and in spite of the covetousness of his 
disposition, he went and delivered up the money 
he had received for his iniquity into the hands of 
those who had paid it. Nor was this all. He was 
constrained to confess to the chief priests and elders, 
whose wrath he knew it would inflame to the utter- 



166 LECTURE VI. 

most, saying, " / have sinnedy in that I have be- 
trayed the innocent blood.*' '' And he cast down 
the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and 
went and hanged himself* Stronger evidence of 
truth arid righteousness, it is impossible for any 
works or any cause to possess. 

XII. Having considered in another place the cha- 
racter of the individuals by whom the miracles of 
the Gospel were performed, it is important now to 
remark that of the miracles themselves. Either 
they were real miracles, or false. If false, the indi- 
viduals who performed them could not, by any 
excess of infatuation, have supposed them true. 
They must, therefore, have been the deliberate asser- 
ters of a divine commission, which they knew had 
not been given them ; and the persevering exhi- 
biters of credentials which they knew were forgeries. 
Hence it is not possible that they could have been 
honest men ; much less, good men. And inasmuch 
as they must have acted from some motive and with 
some object in view, and we cannot suppose that 
such impostors would be sacrificing themselves 
merely out of a benevolent disposition to promote 
the happiness of their fellow-creatures, and relieve 
their woes ; it must have been some object of am- 
bition or of gain which they were pursuing. We 
do not pause now to show what perfect idiots they 
must have been to select such a scheme out of 
ambitious or pecuniary motives. But since, on the 
supposition that their works were fictitious, we can 
imagine no other, the question arises, how do 
these miracles correspond with the idea that the 
agents were impostors, and their motives ambitious 
or covetous ? 

Now I maintain, that considering how many and 
various are the miracles recorded in the New Tes- 
tament, in what various circumstances and by what 

* Matt, xxvii. 3, 4, 5. 



LiiCTURE VI. 167 

various agents they were performed, and that not 
for a month or year only, but many years, in the full 
assemblages of enemies ; it would have been quite 
miraculous, supposing them false, had they been in 
every instance garnished with a concealment so 
perfect, that nothing low, or mean, or undignified — 
nothing betraying the spirit of designing, ambitious, 
or covetous men — should ever have been manifested. 
Take up the accounts of any confessedly fictitious 
miracles, in any age or country, and you will soon 
detect the hand-writing of the spirit and motives 
that produced them. But most singularly — contrary 
to all experience, and all law, on the assumption 
that the miracles of Christ and his apostles were 
fictitious — you discover nothing in them but what is 
entirely worthy of the majesty, holiness, justice, and 
goodness of that God, by whose power they professed 
to be wrought. The most perfect correspondence 
appears between the exalted and holy character and 
office in which the Saviour and his apostles claimed 
to be received, and the works by which their claim 
was sustained. Propriety, dignity, disinterestedness, 
benevolence of the loveliest spirit, compassion of the 
tenderest sensibility, distinguished them. Not the 
least trace is marked on them of any ambitious or 
other suspicious motive. Though the Lord Jesus 
and his apostles were compassed about with re- 
proachful and persecuting enemies, you discern 
nothing vindictive or resentful. Though always in 
personal poverty, " despised and rejected of rneyi,* 
their miracles discover nothing ostentatious — nothing 
to gratify curiosity- — no anxiety for repute — no aim 
at wealth or temporal power. While feeding the 
hungry by thousands, Jesus continued in poverty. 
While, as the good Shepherd, ever following the lost 
sheep through suffering and want, that he might 
administer to their necessities, he showed no sign of 
any care for himself. Now, if Jesus and his 



168 LECTURE VI. 

apostles did not work miracles in truth ; if their 
high claims were false, and they consequently were 
prosecuting a scheme of imposture with selfish pur- 
poses, either of ambition or gain ; there is something 
in all this singularly unaccountable— very unlike the 
laws of nature — exceedingly miraculous. 

XIII. But that the miracles of the Gospel were 
not fictitious, but genuine and undeniable, we have 
the plainest and strongest confession from the primi- 
tive adversaries of Christ and his cause. In the 
first place ; we have a very conclusive and impress- 
ive confession, though silent, from the whole Jewish 
nation and the whole Gentile world. It consists in 
this unquestionable fact, that no individual among 
them ever detected, or was publicly supposed to 
have detected, an imposture. You are to remember, 
that these miracles were addressed to the senses ; 
performed in open daylight ; with all possible 
publicity ; that they were exceedingly numerous and 
various ; wrought by many different agents ; in many 
and remote countries ; before citizens of the most 
enlightened cities, and in the most enlightened age 
of the Roman empire ; that those of the apostles did 
not cease until nearly seventy years from their com- 
mencement, during all which time they must have 
endured the very closest scrutiny that the combined 
forces of learning, enmity, and political authority^ 
could institute. You are to remember, also, what 
krnd of men were those who performed them, and 
that the accounts of them which we now possess 
were published far and wide in the very places 
"where the works were done, and among the very 
people who are said to have witnessed them. You 
are to remember, for example, the miracle of the gift 
of tongues on the day of Pentecost in Jerusalem, 
how it was published abroad in Jerusalem and the 
whole empire, that, on that day, an immense multi- 
tude of people of all languages were amazed at 



LECTURE VI. 169 

hearing the twelve apostles, who were well known 
as unlettered Jews, preaching the gospel in so many 
different languages, that all, whether Cretes, Ara- 
bians, Mesopotamians, or of any other name^ all 
heard, in their respective tongues, the wonderful 
works of God. You are to consider, that in publish- 
ing an account of this astonishing transaction, as 
was done by the apostles in all their preaching, and 
a few years afterwards, by Luke in the Acts of the 
Apostles ; an open, honest appeal was made to all 
the hundreds of thousands who had been assembled 
on that day in Jerusalem, to come forth and deny 
that these things did then and there occur. Hence 
was every possible facility afforded for the detection 
of imposture. Without a miracle for its conceal- 
ment, it could not have escaped- Had there been a 
detection with regard to but one of all the miracles, 
we should have heard of it. Judea, and Greece, 
and Rome, would have rung with the news. The 
books of Jewish and heathen adversaries would have 
reiterated its publication in illuminated pages and 
golden capitals. All the generations of succeeding 
adversaries would have quoted it as one of the 
dearest bequests of classic antiquity. Is there any 
such thing ? I sound the inquiry through the whole 
region of Jewish, and Grecian, and Roman history, 
and I hear nothing in answer, but the echo of my 
own voice, ** Is there any such thing ?^' I must 
answer it myself. There is no such thing, in all 
that has come to us from antiquity, as even a pre- 
tence to the detection of imposture in the gospel 
miracles. 

This I think you will join me in considering a 
very impressive and conclusive confession, though a 
silent one, from the whole Jewish nation and Gentile 
world, to the undeniable reality of the miracles of 
Christ and his apostles. It is all the evidence we 
could with any reason expect from enemies. When 



170 LECTURE VI. 

Deists bid us produce the testimony of enemies as 
well as friends, it is perfectly unreasonable to 
require that we should find enemies, in those days 
of bitter hostility to Christianity, positively acknow- 
ledging that it was attested by miracles. That they 
did not deny it — that Jews and Gentiles, that the 
Mosaic and the pagan priesthoods, that the Pha- 
risees of Jerusalem, and the philosophers of Corinth, 
and Ephesus, and Rome, were silent, on this head — 
one would suppose, is a great deal to get from such 
adversaries. 

But we can go further. Unreasonable, as it is, 
to demand more positive testimony from enemies, 
we can meet the demand. Having, in a previous 
lecture, ascertained the credibility of the Gospel 
history, we may now appeal to it for the acknow- 
ledgment of enemies. Peter, on the day of Pente- 
cost, assumed the fact that the multitudes of Israel, 
to whom he was speaking, acknowledged that Jesus 
of Nazareth had approved himself among them by 
^^ miracles, and luonders, and signs,*** '* This man 
doeth many miracles,*' \ was the confession of the 
chief priests and Pharisees, in council, relative to 
Jesus. " What shall we do to them? (said the 
Jewish rulers, in relation to Peter and John) For 
that indeed a notable miracle has been done by them, 
is manifest to all them that dwell at Jerusalem, and 
we cannot deny it.'' I You know that the only way 
of escape the Jewish rulers could find, while they 
could not deny the miracles, was to ascribe them to 
magic, or the power of demons. " He casteth out 
devils by Beelzebub,** &c. But we have similar 
testimony, without recourse to the scriptures. The 
Jewish rabbles, in the Talmud, acknowledge these 
miracles, and pretend that they were wrought by 
magic, or by the power attendant upon a certain 
use of the name Jehovah, called tetragrammaton, 
* Acts ii. 22. t John xi. 47. t Acts iv. IG. 



LECTURE VI. 171 

which, they pretend, Jesus stole out of the temple.* 
But we have positive testimony also from heathens. 
Celsus who wrote in the latter part of the second 
century, not only allows the principal facts of the 
Gospel history, but acknowledges tkat Christ 
wrought miracles, by which he engaged great mul- 
titudes to adhere to him as the Messiah. That 
these miracles were really performed, so far from 
denying, he tries to account for by ascribing them 
to magic, which (he says) Christ learned in Egypt.f 

Hierocles, president of Bithynia, and a persecu- 
tor of Christians, in a work written against Chris- 
tianity, does not deny the miracles of Christ, but 
compares them with those which he pretended had 
been wrought a long time before, by one Apollo- 
nius, of Tyanea, a heathen, complaining at the 
same time that Christians made so much ado about 
the works of Jesus, as to worship him for God.]: 

Julian, the emperor, in the fourth century, ac- 
knowledges the miracles of Christ, and contents 
himself with trying to depreciate their importance. 
"Jesus," he says, ** did nothing worthy of fame, 
unless any one can suppose that curing the lame 
and the blind, and exorcising demons in the vil- 
lages of Bethsaida, are some of the greatest works." 
He acknowledges that Jesus had a sovereign powder 
over impure spirits, and that he walked on the sur- 
face of the deep.§ Now, it is a matter of no little 
wonder, to say the least of it, that in this nineteenth 
century, men should be so sagacious as to discover 

* Quod Christus per hoc nomen quoque miracula sua 
ediderit, probavit ante multos annos Purchetus. Ejus tamen 
fabulae illustrandae causa, hoc addo, quod apud Talmudicos 
reperi. Ut Christus in ea historia refertur descripturn 
Shemhamphorasch (id est, nomen expositum, quod est 
ipsum nomen mn*), inclusisse in discissam cutem pedis, et 
ex templo eduxisse, ut sic per ejus vim miracula postmoduni 
ediderit. Buxtorf. 

t Lardner, iv. 120-130. % lb. iv. 254. § lb. iv. 332-342. 



172 LECTITRE VI. 

that Christ and his apostles did not attest their 
claims and doctrines with miraculous powers, when 
learned, sagacious, and sufficiently hostile unbe- 
lievers of the earliest centuries of Christianity, having 
opportunities for discovering the state of the case 
such as they cannot pretend to, were constrained to 
acknowledge precisely the contrary. I marvel that 
Celsus, and Porphyry, and Hierocles, and Julian, 
and the Scribes and Pharisees, can rest in their 
graves, when such reflections are cast upon the zeal 
and talents with which they searched for imposture 
in the works of Christ. 

XIV. But we have even better testimony than 
that of enemies. Had Celsus found himself not 
only unable to deny the miracles of Christ, but per- 
suaded, by the mere force of their truth, to renounce 
heathenism, and consecrate his life, in the face of 
persecution and death, to the service of the Gospel, 
would not his testimony have been greatly increased 
in importance ? Would not the very fact of his 
becoming a Christian under the power of evidence, 
be the consideration which, instead of injuring his 
testimony as that of a friend, would have given it 
peculiar force as that of a friend who was once an 
enemy ? Then if I find cases precisely correspond- 
ing with this — if I present you with hundreds and 
thousands of such cases, and tens of thousands — 
will you not own that their positive testimony is far 
stronger than even that of the adversaries whom we 
have cited, and the strongest, of which, in the nature 
of things, we could be possessed ? I find precisely 
such cases in the apostles of Christ. They are re- 
garded as interested witnesses, because they were 
friends. But what made them friends ? Were they 
not men like others? Jews like others? Consider 
Paul, once a fierce persecutor of Christians ! What 
made him a friend ? Consider the three thousand, 
converted from bitter, persecuting Judaism, to the 



LECTURE VI. 173 

faith of Christ, on the day of Pentecost. What 
made friends and disciples of them ? Was it that 
they expected any earthly honours or gains from 
taking up the cross of a crucified Master, in whose 
wonderful works they did not believe ? Was it that 
they coveted reproach, enjoyed suffering, and loved 
death ? or because, by careful consideration, they 
were so convinced that the miracles of Christ, 
especially that of his rising from the dead, were true, 
that no certainty of persecution, no sacrifices of 
property, character, friends, or life, were sufficient 
to prevent them from confessing him before men ? 
To these add the hundreds of thousands, who, 
during the ministry of the apostles, from having been 
Jews or Heathens, and enemies of the Gospel, be- 
came its devoted followers and heroic confessors. 
They bore witness, by word and deed, in torture and 
death, to the great fact that the miracles of Christ 
were true. And what is their testimony worth ? 
What possible motive can you assign for the total 
change which took place in all their habits, attach- 
ments, manners, and affections, when they became 
Christians, other than that of deep, solemn con- 
viction '^ To suppose they were not convinced, is 
to suppose that they made the most tremendous 
sacrifices, not only without motive, but in direct 
opposition to the most powerful motives of the 
human breast. They well knew the poverty, and 
persecution, and martyrdom, to which they exposed 
themselves. Why, then, did they become Chris- 
tians ? When afterwards pursued as the off-scour- 
ing of all things, and pests of the world ; when no 
name was so odious as that of Christian ; when to 
brins: those who bore it to torture was universally 
accounted meritorious ; when it was the study of 
magistrates and soldiers to invent new modes of 
tormenting them ; when thousands of all ranks 
and a^es were ddilv slain for the testimony of Jesus, 



174 LECTURE VI. 

who, by the act of a moment, could have stilled the 
storm to perfect peace; why did they persist, and 
die ? To pretend to explain their stedfastness, ex- 
cept on the supposition of their having firmly be- 
lieved what they professed, were perfectly absurd. 
But did they not know ? Living in the same age 
with the apostles ; living in the very places where 
the miracles were performed; they, if any on earth, 
must have possessed the opportunity of discovering 
the truth with regard to them. We have, then, the 
impressive fact of hundreds of thousands of the 
adversaries of the Gospel, in the first century of 
Christianity, Jews, and Greeks, and Romans, many 
of whom had been persecutors of Christians, bearing 
the most positive testimony to, what they had every 
opportunity of investigating, the reality of the mira- 
cles of Christ ; and sealing their testimony in the 
renouncing of all that was dear to them by birth, 
habit, or education, and embracing Christianity at 
the expense of the keenest reproach and the most 
painful death. Testimony stronger or more unde- 
niable than this, I cannot imagine. If this be not 
sufficient to prove a plain matter of fact, such for 
example as that Lazarus was seen alive after he was 
known to have been dead ; then farewell all his- 
tory and all knowledge. Nothing can be reasonably 
believed, except on evidence of sense, and hardly 
then, after rejecting this. 

We have now arrayed as many of the materials 
of the argument for the Gospel miracles as our time 
would permit. It only remains that we put them 
together into one view, so as to enable you to ap- 
preciate their united strength. I know not how to 
do this in a better way, than to take the supposition 
that all the miracles of Christ and of his apostles 
were fictions, and consequently their authors de- 
liberate deceivers ; and then consider how far the 
supposition will carry us. Let us do so. You un- 



LECTURE VI. 175 

clerstand the supposition. What must be beheved 
by those who will maintain it? 

They must beheve that Jesus and his apostles, 
being obscure, unlettered Jews, without a single 
circumstance to give them influence, were so per- 
fectly silly or insane, as to flatter themselves that 
they could set up a scheme of religion, which, though 
in utter contradiction to the habits, passions, pre- 
judices, and institutions of all the world, should suc- 
ceed in overturning the religious systems and insti- 
tutions of the most enlightened nations ; and yet 
that, with this unaccountable infatuation, they were 
so singularly wise, as to maintain, throughout all 
the miracles which they professed to work in proof 
of their system, the most perfect consistency with 
the dignity and disinterestedness of the oflice they 
assumed, and with the majesty, holiness, and good- 
ness of that God in whose name they professed to 
come. 

They must believe that Jesus and his apostles 
were so wicked, as to attempt an imposture which 
involved not only continual dishonesty, but down- 
right blasphemy, and this from motives of mere am- 
bition or avarice ; and yet, that during the space of 
seventy years they kept up such an invariable show 
of eminent goodness and disinterestedness, as in all 
their works to manifest not the smallest appearance 
of selfishness or any evil design ; but, on the con- 
trary, the utmost evidence of self-denial, of self- 
humiliation, of purity, of holiness, of the tenderest 
compassion, and the most laborious benevolence; so 
that even their enemies never brought inconsistency 
to their charge. 

They must believe the apostles to have been so 
strangely in love, either with wealth, or honour, or 
power, or something else, as to be willing, even out 
of their obscurity and weakness, to seek it by such 
ji desperate scheme as that of Christianity ; and 



176 LECTURE VI. 

yet that, when honours were offered, they earnestly 
refused them ; when they saw the triumph of their 
enemies in the crucifixion of Christ, and that nothing 
awaited his followers but disgrace, poverty, and 
persecution, they persisted in advocating the cause 
of their fallen leader ; and when the storms of per- 
secution grew darker and darker, and ruin and 
death were the certain consequences of perseve- 
rance, and one word of confession would have saved 
them, such was their infatuated attachment to this 
scheme of imposture, such their singular devotion 
to self, to honour, or wealth, or power, or something 
else, that they drove on from suffering to suffering, 
from shame to shame, ending at last their pursuit 
in a bitter death, with the full belief, as Jews, that 
in eternity they should be condemned to an awful 
retribution for their whole career. 

They must believe that, while the apostles w^ere 
so utterly destitute of common ingenuity, that they 
selected precisely that kind of credential which it 
was the most difficult to forge ; and, instead of seek- 
ing, as other impostors would have done, private, 
or confined, or solitary places, for their miracles, 
chose those of the greatest resort and publicity, and 
then placed and left their miracles directly under 
the senses of the multitude ; that while they had 
so little contrivance, that, instead of selecting a few 
masked friends, or the most ignorant of the popu- 
lace, for witnesses, they seemed rather to prefer 
having hardly any witnesses but enemies, and those 
frequently, of the highest, most literate, and powerful 
classes ; that, while so utterly wanting in the com- 
mon cunning of impostors, that, instead of keeping 
their doings to one or a few places, they performed 
them any where, upon any subjects, however sud- 
denly or confusedly presented ; and instead of ceas- 
ing when they had done a few with success, con- 
tinued the hazard for many years, in innumerable 



LECTURE VI. 17^ 

instances, and while they were widely separated 
from one another; I say it must be believed, that 
Christ and his apostles, with all these evidences of 
extraordinary idiocy or lunacy, were yet so wonder- 
fully ingenious, wary, and wise ; so singularly 
skilled in imposture ; so learned in human nature 
and the world ; such a marvellous match for the 
combined efforts of the wise, and mighty, and dili- 
gent, of Judea, and Greece, and Pcome ; laid their 
plans so deeply ; concerted their movements so 
skilfully ; kept their secrets so closely ; carried on 
the whole complicated plot for many years so con- 
sistently, that, though ever watched while together 
and while separated ; continually scrutinized by eiU 
sorts of witnesses and enemies ; none could ever 
detect the least flaw in their pretensions; none 
could discover that, the blind did not see ; the 
lame did not walk ; the dead did not rise. On the 
contrary, the people of Bethany were so deceived 
as actually to believe that they daily saw one of 
their townsmen, whom they knew to have died, 
living and eating among them. The people of Jeru- 
salem were so deceived as to believe, that they saw 
a man whom they knew to have been lame from his 
birth, daily walking among them perfectly well. 
The five thousand were fully persuaded that they 
did all eat and were filled with a few loaves and 
fishes. The people of Syria were so deluded as 
really to believe that their multitudes of sick with 
divers diseases and torments, whom they had 
brought to Jesus, went home with them perfectly 
well, without an exception. Yea, the whole Jewish 
and heathen world was so imposed upon by these 
unlettered, simple, despised, persecuted Jews, as 
tacitly to confess the genuineness of their miracles. 
Philosophers and rabbies, whe^i they attacked Chris- 
tianity, did not deny it ; several of them positively, 
in their books, acknowledged it; and hundreds^f 



178 LECTURE VI. 

Ihousands in the age of the apostles, out of the 
most polished cities and most respectable classes, 
were so entirely taken captive and spell-bound by 
the magic scheme of these weak men, that they 
forsook all, and took joyfully the spoiling of their 
goods, and yielded themselves to fire and sword 
and wild beasts, rather than not confess and follow 
Christ. 

Such are the wonderful things ; such the viola- 
tions of the laws of nature and of common sense ; 
such the widked and contradictory miracles which 
necessarily follow as true, as soon as the miracles of 
Christianity are rejected as false. Now tell me on 
which side the charge of credulity lies with the 
greatest weight. Now, give the reason why our 
modern unbelievers, instead of meeting the testi- 
mony of the Gospel miracles in front, are so con- 
scientiously scrupulous never to know any thing 
about it, and always expend their ingenuity in ridi- 
culing the dignity, or in picking out what they would 
represent as inconsistencies in the books, of Scrip- 
ture. Now explain the singular phenomenon that 
the grand high-priest of modern infidelity should 
have invented the convenient principle which scep- 
tical philosophy had ever before so painfully sighed 
after, that no testimony can prove a miracle. Ah ! 
yes. It was his only hope. The testimony of the 
christian miracles is perfect. It is so overwhelming, 
that if there be any difficulty about them, it arises 
from the very brightness of their evidence itself. It 
is almost inconceivable that such works, wrought so 
publicly and frequently, and with such incontro- 
vertible marks of a divine hand, should not have 
made more converts ; that all who beheld them did 
not yield at once to the great Teacher whom they 
attested, and espouse his cause. But the expla- 
nation is not difficult. The human heart is depraved 
enough for the most desperate rejection of such a, 



LECTURE VI. 179 

master as the Lord Jesus. Men will go to the 
greatest lengths of folly and unbelief, to gratify their 
passions, foster their pride, retain their prejudices, 
and escape the necessity of making sacrifices for 
conscience sake. The truth that so many Jews 
and heathens, with this blaze of testimony before 
them, did not submit to the Gospel, is not more aston- 
ishing than what is seen every day among ourselves : 
persons believing the New Testament, and that 
Christ is the only Saviour of sinners — that eternal 
blessedness awaits those who follow hiAi, and eter- 
nal woe those who neglect his salvation — and yet, 
for all practical ends, as unmoved by these truths 
as if they were fables, as little engaged in the 
service of Christ as if they had never heard his 
name. 

But we must conclude. I trust you will hence- 
forth allow me to consider the miracles of the Gos- 
pel as proved to be genuine. If so, we must consider 
the credentials of Christ and his apostles as acknow- 
ledged. They were, therefore, what they professed 
to be — divinely commissioned and inspired teachers. 
God was with them. What they published as a 
revelation from God, we are consequently bound to 
receive as a revelation from God. That publication 
is contained in the New Testament. We have al- 
ready ascertained the authenticity and credibility of 
the New Testament as containing it. We cease, 
therefore, this evening, with the conclusion that the 
religion published in the New Testament is a reve- 
lation from God. 

May the greatest and best of all the works of the 
Lord Jesus be wrought in all of us; even the 
blessed work of his grace, awakening the sinner 
from spiritual death ; changing, exalting, purifying 
all the affections of his depraved nature ; opening 
the eyes of his understanding, to behold the glory 
of God ; leading him, in repentance and faith, to 

N 2 



180 LECTURE VII. 

the cross, for pardon and peace ; shedding abroad in 
his heart the spirit of divine love ; and causing him 
to rejoice in the blessed assurance of a crov^n of 
glory that fadeth not away ! 



LECTURE VIT. 

PROPHECY. 

Having shown the genuineness of the miracles 
recorded in the New Testament, in attestation of 
the divine mission of the Saviour and his apostles ; 
we are now to take up the subject of prophecy. 
But, while proceeding to this additional source of 
evidence, it is important to be observed, that we do 
so, not because we consider the reasoning m proof 
of Christianity, as a divine revelation, to which you 
have already listened, in any sense incomplete. 
Had our course of lectures been terminated with the 
last, the argument would have been brought to an 
incontrovertible issue. Having made out the great 
point, that genuine miracles were wrought by the 
Saviour and his apostles, in attestation of the divine 
authority of what they did and taught ; we have 
established, by necessary consequence, the great 
truth that Jesus Christ was a teacher come from 
God, and that the New Testament, as an authentic 
publication of the religion taught by him, is to be 
received as containing a divine revelation of truth 
and duty. One line of evidence, therefore — one 
road leading to the scriptures, as the great central 
fountain of divine truth — we have travelled over; and 
it has set us down beside the water of life. Now, if 
this were the only road, it would be amply sufficient. 
The loftiest intellect need not be ashamed ; tlie 



LECTURE VII. 18^1 

Weakest need not fear, to walk therein.* But God 
has not only furnished us with the plainest, but with 
the most various and abundant evidence. And, 
since the object of these lectures is not only to prove 
the divine authority of the Gospel, but also to give 
you an idea of the diversified character of the many 
ways by which the proof may be established ; we 
propose now to return from the position we have 
reached by the argument of our last lecture, and 
endeavour to arrive at it again by a route entirely 
different. We take up the prophecies, recorded in 
the Scriptures, and shall endeavour to produce from 
them satisfactory and impressive evidence that in 
the Bible we have divine inspiration ; and in Jesus 
Christ, a teacher sent of God. 

What is a prophecy, according to the sense of 
Scripture, and as we are now about to consider it? 
It is a declaration of future events, such as no human 
wisdom or forecast is sufficient to make ; depending 
on a knowledge of the innumerable contingencies of 
human affairs, which belongs exclusively to the 
omniscience of God ; so that, from its very nature, 
prophecy must be divine revelation. " The pro^ 
phecy came not in old time by the will of man ; but 
holy men of God spake as they were moved by the 
Holy Ghost.*' 

A prophecy, considered in itself, separately from 
its fulfilment, is no evidence of revelation, because 
it is not perfected. But as soon as fulfilled, it is 

* A celebrated infidel once acknowledged that even 
atheism would be refuted by the proof of a single miracle of 
the Gospel, Spinoza declared that he would have broken 
his atheistic system to pieces, and embraced without repug- 
nance the ordinary faith of Christians, could he have been 
persuaded of the resurrection of Lazarus from the dead! 
Was it not a foresight of the arguments that would neces- 
sarily result from the proof of this miracle, that prevented 
him from being persuaded of its truth ? — See Wutso7i*s Apo- 
logy/or Christianity, p, 93. 



182 LECTURE VII. 

complete. The hand of God in it, is then attested. 
The evidence that the person by whom it was uttered 
was under the influence of the Spirit of divine omni- 
science, is finished. Then prophecy takes the place 
of miracle, and becomes at once the highest and 
most unquestionable proof, not only that the indivi- 
dual who declared it was the agent of communicat- 
ing, in that particular, a divine revelation; but also, 
that a divine sanction is impressed upon that whole 
system of religion with which his prophecies may be 
connected.* <^ Future contingencies, such, for ex- 
ample, as those which relate to the rise and fall of 
nations and states not yet in existence, or to the 
minute concerns of individuals not yet born, are 
secrets which it is evident no man or angel can 
penetrate, their causes being indeterminate, their 
relations with other things fluctuating and unknown. 
It follows, therefore, that the prediction of such con- 
tingent events cannot otherwise than proceed from 
God; and, farther, since God cannot, without a 
violation of His perfect holiness and rectitude, 
visibly aid delusion and wickedness, the inference is 
equally cogent and necessary, that the accomplish- 
ment of predictions delivered by those who profess 
divine authority amounts to a full proof that they 
really possess the authority they assume. Other 
arguments may be evaded ; other evidence may not 
convince. Strange eflTects (though not miraculous 
ones) may be produced by other than divine power."t 
But this can only be evaded by refusing to behold it, 
and only counterfeited by him who is ingenious 
enough to borrow omniscience in aid of imposture. 
'* To declare a thing shall come to be, long before it 
is in being (says Justin Martyr;) and, then to bring 



» a 



All prophecies (says Hume) are real miracles, and as 
such only, can be admitted as proofs of any revelation."— 
Phil. Essuys. 

t Gregory's Letters. 



LECTURE VI r. 183 

about the accomplishment of that very thing, accord- 
ing to the same declaration ; this, or nothing*, is the 
work of God/' 

There are considerations connected with this par^ 
ticular source of evidence, which render it specially 
interesting and valuable. 

Prophecy furnishes an argument, the force of 
which is continually groiving. The argument be- 
gan, when first a single prophecy was fulfilled. It 
increased more and more as predictions and fulfil- 
ments multiplied. In the age of the apostles, it 
was a powerful as well as favourite weapon in proof 
of the Gospel. But during that period many new 
predictions were published, and many ancient ones 
remained to be accomplished. The argument, con- 
sequently, was not yet at its height. It has been 
growing ever since, as one century after another 
has rolled out an additional fulfilment, or completed 
and enlarged those already advanced. We, in the 
present age, enjoy an expanse, and variety, and 
completeness of prophetic evidence, far exceeding 
those which the chart of history presented to St. 
Paul. There is to us, a voice from the silent soli- 
tudes where Babylon and Tyre once stood in pride, 
and reigned in power ; from the modern history of 
the prostrate Egypt ; from the wonderful annals and 
present condition of the Jewish race ; from the de- 
solate state of the Holy Land and adjoining coun- 
tries ; from the rise and present aspect of the mystic 
Babylon — which the primitive christians were not 
privileged to hear. The force of this argument is 
yet to grow continually. A few years hence, in all 
probability, will exhibit it invested with a brightness 
and glory, compared with which all present evi- 
dence will seem but as morning twilight. The end 
of the world will be its full maturity. Prophecy 
having begun with the history of sin, extends to the 
completion of its tragedy ; and not till the blazing 



1^4 LECTURE VII. 

of the great conflagration, when '' the earth and all 
that is therein shall be burned up," will its every 
prediction be fulfilled ; or the fulness of glory with 
which it was designed to show the witness of God 
in the Gospel of his Son, be made to appear. 

Now, it is this continual growing of prophetic evi- 
dence that makes it so peculiarly valuable. The 
argument derived from miracles, though it could 
never have been more conclusive than it is to us, 
was certainly more impressive to those who saw the 
miracles, or who lived in the age in which they were 
wrought. The evidence of the senses, while it could 
not render that argument more perfect to us, would 
certainly make it much more influential. And it is 
very difficult for most persons to distinguish between 
the conclusiveness and the impressiveness of evi- 
dence. Because the lapse of centuries, by removing 
the christian miracles far from us, has diminished 
the sensible effect they would otherwise have had 
upon our minds, it is very generally supposed that 
the same cause has enfeebled the evidence on which 
their genuineness is maintained. This idea, though 
entirely unfounded, is too natural, to those who do 
not think deeply, to be easily removed. But with 
regard to the evidence arising from prophecy, it can- 
not exist. Predictions, now in progress of fulfilment, 
are miracles which centuries can only render more 
certain and impressive. If there was a peculiar 
privilege conferred on those who saw, in the miracles 
of Christ, manifest to sense, the wonderful works of 
God\s omnipotence ; there is also a similar privilege 
conferred on us, who, in consequence of the ever 
increasing fulfilment of prophecy, may see in the 
Scriptures, more brilliantly illuminated than ever, 
the hand-writing of God's omniscience. 

There is another peculiarity in much of the evi- 
dence from prophecy, which renders it peculiarly 
valuable. It is evidence before our eyes, addressed 



LECTURE VII. 185 

to our senses. By this we do not mean that the 
evidence arising from the miracles of Christ and his 
apostles would be any more conclusive, however 
much it would be increased in its impression on 
our minds, did we behold the miracles, instead of 
reading of them in well-attested history. We be- 
lieve, on the contrary, that this description of evi- 
dence, as addressed to us, is perfect ; and, that in 
the mode in which a believer of the present age 
receives it, there are spiritual benefits which could 
not have been possessed by those who believed the 
Gospel on the testimony of their senses. ** Blessed 
are they that have not seen, and yet have believed." 
But still there is, and perhaps ever will be, a class 
of minds that, like the disciple Thomas, will require 
to see before they will believe. Either their indiffer- 
ence or sluggishness prevents them from pursuing a 
line of argument that would carry them back amidst 
the testimonies of antiquity ; or else their willing 
scepticism, by ingenious sophistry, would shield 
them from all the evidence derived from miraculous 
agency, by the assumption that no testimony can 
prove a miracle. The utter fallacy of this position, 
we trust, was satisfactorily shown in a preceding 
lecture. But here are evidences with which, were 
it true, it could have no connection. God, in his 
infinite wisdom and mercy, has provided for all 
classes of minds, and all descriptions of infidelity ; 
so that all unbelievers may be without excuse. The 
argument from prophecy may be rendered brief 
enough for the most sluggish — tangible enough for 
the most obstinate opposers of historical testimony. 
They have only to read in the Bible the predictions 
with regard to the once proud cities of Babylon and 
Tyre, or the once powerful empire of Egypt, and 
then to open their ears to the accounts which almost 
every wind conveys, or go and see for themselves, 
the obscure remnants of the ruins of those cities, 



186 LECTURE VII. 

and of that once mighty empire ; they have only 
to read in the books of Moses, what, 3300 years 
ago, was foretold of the history of the Jewish 
people ; and tlien to lift up their eyes, and behold 
the present condition and the notorious peculiarities 
of that wonderful race ; to see that the prophecies 
of the Bible have been plainly and most parti- 
cularly fulfilled— fulfilled in a manner which no 
human sagacity could have foreseen, which no 
human power could have brought to pass; and 
consequently that the authors of those prophecies 
were inspired men, and the religion they taught 
was the word of God. In these and various other 
examples, which might be adduced, of the present 
and visible fulfilment of prophecy, the miracles of 
the Jewish and Christian dispensations are in fact 
continued among us. '* Men are sometimes dis- 
posed to think that if they could see a miracle 
wrought in their own sight, they would believe the 
Gospel without delay, and obey it unreservedly. 
They know not their own hearts. ' If they believe 
not Moses and the prophets, neither would they 
believe, though one rose from the dead.' But in the 
whole range of prophecy now fulfilling before their 
eyes, they have in fact a series of divine interpo- 
sitions, not precisely of the nature of miracles, in 
the sense of brief, and instant, and visible suspen- 
sions of the laws of nature, but evidently so in the 
sense of supernatural interference, in the rise and 
fall of cities, and nations, and empires ; in the ar- 
rangement of times and circumstances ; in that won- 
derful display of infinite foreknowledge and infinite 
power, apparent in the control of the wills of unnum- 
bered free and accountable agents to a certain result."* 
In our last lecture we stated that the religion of 
the Bible is the only one which, on its first introduc- 
tion, appealed to miracles in evidence of the divine 

* Wilson's Lectures. 



LECTURE VII. 187 

authority of its teachers. Other religions have pro- 
fessed occasional miracles ; but, in the outset, none, 
except that of the Holy Scriptures, ever rested its 
claims to belief, or was attempted to be set up, on 
the faith of miraculous operations. We make the 
same remark, with still more evident truth, with 
regard to prophecy. The sublime appeal of men 
professing to be commissioned of God, to the events 
of thousands of years thereafter, as witnesses of their 
truth ; the moral grandeur of that appeal, which, 
after having deposited in the hands of nations, a 
prediction of minute transactions, which the innumer- 
able contingencies of a long retinue of centuries are 
to bring out, stakes its whole cause upon a perfect 
fulfilment, thus resting itself singly upon the omni- 
science and omnipotence of God, and separating to 
an infinite distance all possibihty of human support; 
this is a dignity to which nothing but the inspiration 
of the Scriptures can pretend ; a noble daring, on 
which nothing else was ever known to venture. The 
corruptions of Christianity, as existing in the church 
of Rome, have attempted to prop up their feeble 
foundations on the credit of miracles, easily refuted 
indeed, but widely boasted of. But prophecy, even 
the effrontery of that " man of sin," " whose coming 
(saith St. Paul) is with all deceivableness of unright- 
eousness,'' has never pretended to. Although Mo- 
hammed did not profess to support his pretensions 
by miracles, and the Koran expressly concedes that 
miraculous power was not given him ; yet his fol- 
lowers, hundreds of years after his death, related 
many miracles as having been performed under his 
hand. But that Mohammed, though styled the 
prophet of God, ever declared a prophecy, on the 
fulfilment of which he rested his claims to inspira- 
tion, none ever asserted. 

The history of pagan nations, indeed, abounds 
with stories of auguries, and oracles, and detached 



^88 LECTURE VII; 

predictions ; but it was with no reference to the 
establishment of paganism that they were uttered. 
On the contrary, the fact that paganism was esta- 
bhshed already, gave them all their reverence. 
But what an immeasurable distance separates all 
the pretended oracles of paganism from the dignity 
of the prophecies in the Bible. The avowed end of 
the former was to satisfy some trivial curiosity, or 
aid the designs of some military or political leader. 
The influence of intimidation or of bribery produced 
them. They were never spontaneous. The oracles 
were careful to take advantage of the security of 
silence, until obliged to speak in answer to a direct 
appeal. Then they never uttered a syllable without 
getting time for preparation. Inquiries were rendered 
as difficult and as expensive as possible, in order, 
not only to enrich the oracles, but to diminish the 
occasions of exposure. Every inquiry must be at- 
tended with numerous and minute ceremonies on 
the part of the applicant, as well as the prophet ; in 
order that omissions or mismanagements might 
afford frequent excuses for the failure of the re- 
sponse, without implicating the inspiration of its 
author ! The god was not always in a humour to be 
consulted : " Either he was talking, or he was 
pursuing, or he was in a journey, or, pcradventure, 
he was sleeping, and must be awakened.'' This 
afforded a very convenient opportunity of postponing 
a difficult case. " Omens were to be taken, and 
auguries examined, which, if unfavourable in any 
particular, either precluded the inquiry for the pre- 
sent, or required further lustrations, ceremonies, 
and sacrifices, to purify the person who had con- 
suited, and render him fit to receive an answer from 
the gods, or to bring their wayward deities to a 
temper suitable to the inquiry."* When no means 
of evasion remained, the answers given, were either 

* Nares's View of Prophecy. 



LECTURE VII. 189 

SO ambiguous as to suit any alternative, or so obscure 
as to require a second oracle to explain them. When 
the prediction failed, there was no want of subter- 
fuges by which to maintain the credit of the oracle. 
It was conveniently discovered, either that the gods 
were averse to the inquirer, or that he had not been 
in a proper state for the consultation, or that some 
indispensable ceremony had been omitted or mis- 
managed. But all these precautions and artifices 
were not sufficient to prevent those oracles from 
falling into utter contempt with the more enlightened 
heathens.* Who could think of comparing such 
pitiful mockeries of divine omniscience with the 
dignified, and sublime, and holy prophecies which 
are spread out so openly and widely in the Scriptures ? 
To point out the particulars in which the prophets of 
the Bible were distinguished above all the oracles of 
the pagans, were to suppose a measure of ignorance 
among my hearers, as to the most conspicuous fea- 
tures of the Scriptures, with which I cannot believe 
them chargeable. But our assertion remains, and 
deserves to be repeated, that neither in the rise, nor 
in the progressive advancement of any religion, but 
that of the Bible, have prophecies been professed or 
appealed to, in evidence of its truth. This single 
fact, that all other religions have shrunk from at- 
tempting such dangerous ground ; that, notwith- 
standing the boldness with which other descriptions 
of evidence have been counterfeited among pagans 
and Mohammedans, and in support of the corrup- 
tions of popery, all have kept aloof from this ; and 
yet that this very evidence, so extremely hazardous 
' — so certain of ultimate exposure in case of imposi- 
tion — is every where professed in the Bible, and 
forms the golden chain that holds all its parts to- 
gether, and by which it spans the world, touching at 
once its beginning and ending, the first and the last; 
* Stillingfleet's Orig. Sacrae, I. 2, c. 3, p. 221. 



190 Lecture vii. 

this, I say, independently of the question of ful- 
filment, is a strong presumptive argument that the 
Bible contains something of great importance, which 
no other religion possessed ; something to warrant 
it in venturing where nothing but Divine Omni- 
science is able to tread ; in other words, that its 
writers were holy men, who '' spake as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost.*' 

The overpowering weight of the evidence from 
prophecy, and the moral grandeur with which it 
attests the inspiration of God and the Messiahship 
of Christ, can only be appreciated by a full view of 
the immense scheme and the vast extent of the 
prophecies in the Bible. Their record occupies a 
large portion of the Scriptures. In the third chap- 
ter of the Bible, it begins ; in the last, it ends. 
Its spirit arose with the fall of man in Eden; its 
predictions will only end with his perfect recovery 
in heaven. During the progress of more than four 
thousand years, the scheme of prophecy was con- 
tinually opening; its predictions were continually 
multiplying; its grand object and purpose were 
continually becoming more distinct and luminous. 
The spirit of prophecy first uttered its voice when 
as yet our fallen parents had not been expelled the 
garden of innocence. Cain heard in it the warning 
of his punishment. Enoch continued its declara- 
tions. Noah transmitted its strain. Abraham's 
whole life was guided and encouraged by its inspi- 
rations. Isaac was the child, as well as the instru- 
ment, of prophetic communication. Jacob with his 
last breath foretold the future history of his twelve 
sons in their generations, and the reign of a law- 
giver in Judah till Shiloh should come. The harp 
of prophecy remained in silence, while the posterity 
of Jacob remained in Egyptian bondage ; but no 
sooner was Israel free, than the Spirit again breathed 
upon its strings, and in the hand of Moses it spake 



LECTURE VII. 191 

of the great Prophet who was to come to the church, 
and sketched the Jewish history with wonderful 
minuteness, down even to the present and far future 
times. Between Moses and David lived Samuel, a 
prophet of the Lord. Immediately after him, began 
what may be styled, with emphatic distinction, '* the 
age of prophecy '' It opened with the elevated and 
sublime poetry of David. It advanced with the 
ministry of honoured Elijah. As he went up in 
the flaming chariot, translated to heaven, his mantle 
descended upon the " man of God,'' Elisha. Among 
the minor prophets who carried on the spirit of this 
age of seers, were Hosea, Amos, and Micah. Then 
followed Isaiah, as full of the spirit of the Gospel, 
as of the spirit of prophecy ; and Jeremiah, over- 
flowing as well with tender lamentation for the 
aflliction of Israel, as with the sublimest predictions 
of the days when the Lord would heal and comfort 
them ; then Ezekiel, with as many visions of the 
future, as the eyes in his mysterious wheels, pro- 
phesying ** in the midst of the valley which was 
filled with bones.'* Ezekiel connected in his per- 
son the age of prophecy with that of the captivity 
of Judah. Daniel succeeded him, and beside the 
prophetic interpretation of the hand-writing on the 
wall, foretold the succession of the four powerful 
monarchies, and the feeble rising and ultimate do- 
minion of the fifth, and determined the time when 
the daily sacrifice would cease, and the Messiah be 
cut off— not for himself Haggai and Zechariah 
continued the prophetic strain, after the return of 
Judah from captivity. Malachi terminated the line 
of Old Testament prophets and the canon of Old 
Testament scriptures, with the sublime annunciation 
of one who was to come, in the spirit and power of 
Elijah, to prepare the way of the Lord. Again, the 
harp of prophecy was silent as during the bon- 
dage of Egypt, until '' that Prophet" like unto, b\it 



19i LECTURE VII. 

infinitely greater than, Moses arose. Jesus, the 
great object of prophecy from the beginning — him- 
self " the spirit of prophecy ;" — besides his own 
death and resurrection, foretold the calamities that 
should befall Jerusalem, as well as the utter destruc- 
tion of the Jewish state. Paul followed his Mas- 
ter's steps, as well in the walks of prophecy, as of 
martyrdom, forewarning the church of " that man 
of sin, the son of perdition, whose coming is after 
the working of Satan, with all power, and signs, 
and lying wonders.*'* John closed the succession 
of prophecy, and the canon of scripture together, 
with predictions, the awfiil sublimity of which no 
pen can rival, and the wonderful expanse of which 
nothing but the events of all future time can mea- 
sure. 

Thus have we a bright train of holy men, reach- 
ing from the earliest age of mankind, through a 
period of more than four thousand years, and ex- 
tending their predictions to the world's end. I see 
in them the utmost variety — as well as to condi- 
tion and character, as to the ages in which they 
lived — princes, patriarchs, priests, legislators, shep- 
herds, fishermen^ Exceedingly various in natural 
qualifications, in education, habits, and employ- 
ments, they wrote in various styles, but each as 
he was '' moved by the Holy Ghost.'' Now, when, in 
connection with this variety in the prophets them- 
selves ; I consider the vast variety and extent of 
the subjects on which their predictions are em- 
ployed, embracing not only the history of the Jews 
for many centuries, but that also of the minor 
nations immediately around, with that of the more 
remote empires of Egypt, and Assyria, and Chal- 
dea, and Persia, and Macedon, and Rome ; when 
I consider that in this immense vastness of extent, 
so great is their minuteness of detail, that sundry 

* 2 Thess. ii. 3—9. 



LECTURE VII. 193 

particular events and features in the destruction, 
not only of the city of Jerusalem, but also of Ni- 
neveh, and Babylon, and Tyre, are predicted with 
the most graphic and striking precision ; when, in 
the midst of such wonderful diversity of authors, 
ages, circumstances, and of subjects, from the down- 
fall of an empire, to the tumbling of a wall, I per- 
ceive not the smallest inconsistency or collision, but, 
on the contrary, the utmost harmony, as well of 
execution as of purpose and of spirit — the whole 
array of prophecy, from first to last, bearing down 
and concentrating upon one grand object — the tes- 
timony of Jesus — the rise, progress, and eternal 
accomplishment of his plan of redeeming love ; in 
a word, when I behold a scheme so vast, as to em- 
brace all time, and yet so minute that it can detail 
the events of an hour; so general, that, in a few 
lines, it predicts the history of the four mightiest 
empires, and yet so particular that chapters are 
devoted to the history of one individual; so diver- 
sified in its materials, as to be made up of contri- 
butions from men of all ages and minds, during a 
period of four thousand years ; and yet so identical, 
that one spirit, and one grand harmonious purpose, 
animate the whole; when I compare all this, arrayed, 
as it is, in the richest poetry and loftiest eloquence 
that eye of man ever read, with whatever else in the 
world ever pretended to the praise of prophecy; I 
behold a grandeur of conception — a sublimity of 
design — an all-controlling power of execution — a 
unity and self-depending supremacy of mind, which 
bespeak the omniscience and omnipotence of Him 
who *' waSy and is^ and is to come — the Almighty ^ 
I say nothing yet of the fulfilment of any portion of 
this stupendous plan; I only say, look at the plan 
itself in all its comprehensiveness and minuteness, 
and tell me, if it be not utterly at variance with all 
human experience, and in itself perfectly incredible, 

o 



194 LECTURE vn. 

that imposture should have conceived such a scheme, 
or should ever have dared to commit its cause to a 
venture that could only succeed by a continuance of 
miraculous fortune through all ages of the world. 
Consider the plan itself, the various minds that car- 
ried on the succession of its several predictions, 
forming a line of holy men from the earliest periods 
of antediluvian history, down to the last of the apos- 
tles of Christ; see how they all agree in spirit and 
purpose, while yet^o different in character and cir- 
cumstances; see how they all unite in testifying of 
Christ, so that, as the last of them said, ** the testi- 
mony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy ;' then, tell 
me, how imposture can be supposed to have wrought, 
unexposed, for so many thousands of years ; how it 
could have chosen its agents out of forty centuries- 
Out of circumstances so disadvantageous, and bid 
them embrace such an immense range of subjects for 
their predictions, and yet, without any inconsistency 
or want of harmony, or any thing incompatible with 
the idea of one all-pervading mind having regulated 
the whole. I do not now say that so much as one 
prophecy has been fulfilled. I only say, and I chal- 
lenge all denial, that not a single prediction in the 
whole succession can be shown to have failed ; or to 
have been contradicted by the times or events to 
which it referred. I only assert that, while many of 
the prophecies remain unfulfilled, because the times 
they relate to have not arrived; a very great number 
must have either been fulfilled already, or have 
utterly failed ; and yet no unbeliever could ever put 
his hand on that portion of history which contradicted 
the truth of any. I ask you to remember this inipor- 
tant and undeniable fact, and then say whether, inde- 
pendently of the question of evident fulfilment, it is 
not tnost impressive evidence that another mind than 
that of man was the author of the prophecies of the 
Bible ; whether it can be supposed possible, in the 



LECTURE VII^ 195 

nature of things, that human ingenuity could have 
contrived a volume of predictions — reaching so far — 
extending so widely — telling so much — assuming 
such particularity, without having been contradicted 
by a single event in the history of nearly six thou- 
sand years. 

We now enter upon the question of fulfilment, 
I undertake to show that the history of the world 
has wonderfully responded to the prophecies of the. 
Bible, and echoed back to the holy men who uttered 
them, a complete assurance that they ** spake as 
they were moved by the Holy Ghost/' But where 
shall I begin ? It were easier to write a volume on 
this one subject, than to compress the matter within 
our necessary limits, so as to do it any tolerable 
justice. Selecting some insulated portions of the 
train of prophecy, we must content ourselves with 
exhibiting their accomplishment as specimens of the 
whole. To this, the remainder of the present lecture, 
and the whole of the next, will be devoted. 

As an example of minute prediction and singuFar 
fulfilment, compare Jeremiah xxxiv. 2, 3, with 
Exekiel xii. 13. In the former passage, it was 
foretold by one prophet, that Zedekiah the king of 
Judah should be delivered into the hand of the king 
of Babylon, and behold his eyes, and speak with him 
tnouth to mouth, and go to Babylon, In the latter, 
it was foretold by another prophet, that Zedekiah 
should not see Babylon, though he should die there^ 
But is there not a contradiction here ? How could 
Zedekiah be taken to Babylon, and behold her king, 
and die there, and yet never see the city ? The his- 
tory- of the kings of Judah, written without any 
xiesign of pointing out the fulfilment of prophecy, 
fully explains the difficulty. Zedekiah was delivered 
into the hands of the king of Babylon, and beheld 
his eyes, and spake with him mouth to mouth ; not, 
however, at Babylon, but at Riblah. There his eyes 



o2 



196 LECTURE VII. 

were put out by command of his captor. In this 
state, he went to Babylon, and died there, having 
never seen the city of his captivity. 

Another example of wonderful minuteness is found 
in the prophecies of the fall and destruction of 
Babylon. We can notice only a small part of 
them. '' It shall never be inhabited, neither shall 
it be dwelt in, (said the prophet,) from generation 
to generation. Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent 
there, neither shall the shepherds make their fold 
there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there, 
and the houses shall be full of doleful creatures ; 
and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance 
there, and the wild beasts of the desert shall cry 
in their desolate houses, and dragons in their plea- 
sant palaces."* '' I will also make it a possession 
for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will 
sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the 
Lord of hosts." These words were uttered when 
Babylon was '' the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of 
the Chaldees^ excellency," about IGO years before 
she was brought down. '' How hath the golden 
city ceased !" " Her pomp is brought down to the 
grave." Sixteen centuries have passed since her 
foundations were inhabited by a human being. 
Deterred by superstitious fears of evil spirits, which 
are said to haunt the place where she stood, and 
by the more rational dread of reptiles and wild 
beasts, the wandering Arab never pitches his tent 
there. In a plain once famous for the richness of 
its pasture, the shepherds make no fold. Reptiles, 
bats, and " doleful creatures"— jackals, hyenas, 
and 'lions — inhabit the holes, and caverns, and 
marshes, of the desolate city. In the fourth cen- 
tury, Babylon was a hunting-ground for the Persian 
monarchs. By the annual overflowing of the Eu- 
phrates, pools of stagnant water are left in the 

* Is. xiii. 20, 21, 22. 



LECTURE VII. 197 

hollow places of the ancient site, by which morasses 
have been formed, so that Babylon has indeed be- 
come a possession for the bittern, and pools of 
water. It has been swept with the besom of de- 
struction. The fertile plain of Shinar, renowned 
for its ancient abundance, is an uninterrupted 
desert, strewed with the confused ruins of Grecian, 
Roman, and Arabian towns. A modern traveller, 
in his *' search after the walls of Babylon,'' de- 
scribes ** a mass of solid wall, about thirty feet in 
length, by twelve or fifteen in thickness,'' as the only 
part of them that can now be discovered.* Thus, 
according to the words of the prophet, is she cast up 
as heaps, destroyed utterly ; nothing of her is left.f 
Tyre was once the emporium of the world, ** the 
theatre of an immense commerce and navigation, 
the nursery of arts and science, and the city of 
perhaps the most industrious and active people ever 
known."! Situate at the entry of the sea, she was 
a merchant of the people for many isles. All 
nations were her merchants in all sorts of things. 
The ships of Tarshish did sing of her in the mar- 
ket ; and she was replenished and made very glorious 
in the midst of the seas,% It was of this mistress 
of princes, that Ezekiel prophesied in the name of 
the Lord : ** I will scrape her dust from her, and 
make her like the top of a rock. It shall be a place 
for the spreading of nets in the midst of the sea.^'W 
How singularly particular ! She was not only to be 
utterly destroyed, but the use that would be made 
of her site, and the kind of men who would inhabit 
it, were pointed out more than a thousand years 
before her complete destruction, How precise the 
fulfilment ! Shaw, in his book of travels, describes 
the port of Tyre as so choked up, that the boats 

* Buckingham's Travels. t Jer. 1. 26. 

X Volney*s Travels. § Ezekiel xxvii. 

[| Ezekiel xxvi. 4, 5. 



198 LECTURE vir. 

of the Jishermen, who now and then come to the 
place, and dry their nets upon its rocks and ruins, 
can hardly enter.* Bruce describes the site of Tyre 
as ** a rock whereon fishers dry their nets/* But 
the testimony of the infidel Volney is more va- 
luable. ** The whole village of Tyre contains only 
fifty or sixty poor families, who live obscurely on 
the produce of their little ground and a trifling 
fishery, f 

Egypt, the most ancient, was also the most power- 
ful and wealthy of kingdoms. But a prophecy went 
forth against her while yet she was in all her pomp 
and pride, that the pride of her power should come 
down ; that her land and all that was therein should 
be made waste by the hand of strangers ; that there 
should be no more a prince of the land of Egypt , 
and the sceptre of Egypt should depart away.X 
How universally this once fertile country, the gra- 
nary of the world, has been wasted, and her innu- 
merable cities have been buried ; how remarkably 
the hand of strangers has done it, and how deplo- 
rably the remnant of this populous nation is now, 
and has been for many centuries, immersed in 
slavery, and ignorance, and poverty, and every 
crime, I need not describe. The most remarkable 
portion of the prophecy is that which declares that 
there shall be "no more a prince of the land of 
Egypt.'* From the conquest of the Persians, about 
350 years before Christ, to the present day, the 
sceptre of Egypt has been broken ; she has been 
governed by strangers; every effort to raise an 
Egyptian to the throne has been defeated. Out 
of the mouth of Volney, the Lord has caused to be 
declared the fulfilment of His word. Of Egypt, 
that most unwilling agent in establishing the truth 
of Scripture, writes: *' Deprived, twenty-three cen- 

* Shaw's Travels, ii. p. 31. t Travels, ii. p. 212. 

+ Ezek. XXX. G, 12, 13.— Zech. x. 11. 



LECTURE VII. 199 

turies ago, of her natural proprietors, she has seen 
her fertile fields successively a prey to the Persians^ 
the Macedonians, the Romans, the Greeks, the 
Arabs, the Georgians, and at length the race of 
Tartars, distinguished by the name of Ottoman 
Turks,. The Mamalukes, purchased as slaves and 
introduced as soldiers, soon usurped the power, and 
elected a leader. If their first establishment was a 
singular event, their continuance is not less extra- 
ordinary. • They are replaced by slaves brought 
from their original country. The system of oppres- 
sion is methodical. Every thing the traveller sees 
or hears reminds him he is in the country of slavery 
and tyranny.''* 

Among the most interesting fulfilments of pro- 
phecy, are those discovered in the present condition 
of the country and cities of Judea. For a very 
striking view of them, the reader is referred to Keith 
on Prophecy, a valuable work lately republished in 
this country. But there is one prediction in this 
department which I cannot pass over. After describ- 
ing the divine judgments upon the land, the pro- 
phet adds : **The generation to come of your children, 
and the stranger that shall come from a far land, 
shall say, when they see the plagues of that land, 
and the sickness which the Lord hath laid upon it, 
Wherefore hath the Lord done thus unto this land ? 
What meaneth the heat of this great anger T'f 
About 3000 years after these words were written, 
a famous traveller, a scoffer at the Scriptures, walks 
through this smitten country. He is the stranger 
from a far land. Deeply impressed with the as- 
pect of all things around him, and in all probability 
entirely ignorant of the prophecy he is about to 
fulfil, he exclaims, ** Good God ! from whence 
proceed such melancholy revolutions ? For what 

• Travels, ii. p. 74, 103, 110, 198. 
t Deut xxix. 22, 24. 



200 LECTURE VII. 

cause is the fortune of these countries so strikingly 
changed ? Why are so many cities destroyed ? 
Why is not that ancient population reproduced and 
perpetuated ?'' ** I wandered over the country. .1 
traversed the provinces. I enumerated the king- 
doms of Damascus and Idumea, of Jerusalem and 
Samaria. This Syria, said I to myself, now almost 
depopulated, then contained a hundred flourishing 
cities, and abounded with towns, villages, and ham- 
lets. What are become of so many productions of 
the hands of man ?''* 

- No prophecies deserve more of the attention of 
the student of Scripture than those concerning the 
Jews, which are scattered from one end of the 
Bible to the other. Their wonderful accomplish- 
ment is in every one's view. We can only glance 
at some of the many particulars which they em- 
brace. Three thousand two hundred years ago, it 
was written by Moses : ** The Lord shall scatter 
thee among all people, from the one end of the 
earth even unto the other : and among these na- 
tions shalt thou find no ease, neither shall the sole 
of thy foot have rest ; and thou shalt become an 
astonishment, a proverb, and a by-word among all 
the nations whither the Lord shall lead thee ; and 
thou shalt be only oppressed and crushed alway ; 
and the Lord will make thy plagues wonderful, and 
the plague of thy seed, even great plagues and of 
long continuance/'t ^^t, notwithstanding all this, 
the Jews were not to be destroyed without recovery. 
*' Yet for all that, (saith the prophet,) when they be 
in the land of their enemies, I will not cast them 
away, neither will I abhor them, to destroy them 
utterly."! '* I will make a full end of all the 
nations whither I have driven thee, but I will not 
make a full end of thee."§ '' For the children of 

* Volnev's Ruins, c. ii. p. 8. t Deut. xxviii. 
X Lev. x'xvi. 44, ^ Jer. xWi. 27, 28. 



LECTURE VII. 201 

Israel shall abide many days without a king, and 
without a prince, and without a sacrifice, and with- 
out an image, and without an ephod, and without 
teraphim ; afterward shall the children of Israel 
return, and seek the Lord their God, and David 
their king ; and shall fear the Lord and his good- 
ness in the latter days."* 

There is nothing in the history of nations so 
unaccountable, on human principles, as the destruc- 
tion and the preservation of the Jews. *' Scattered 
among all nations ;'* where are they not ? Citizens 
of the world, and yet citizens of no country in the 
world ; in what habitable part of the globe is not 
the Jew familiarly known ? He has wandered every 
where, and is still every where a wanderer. One 
characteristic of this wonderful race is written over 
all their history, from their dispersion to the present 
time. Among the nations, they have found no ease, 
nor rest to the soles of their feet. Banished from 
city to city, and from country to country ; always 
insecure in their dwelling places, and liable to be 
suddenly driven away whenever the bigotry, or ava- 
rice, or cruelty of rulers demanded a sacrifice ; a 
late decree of the Russian empire has proclaimed to 
the world that their banishments have not yet 
ceased. Never certain of permission to remain, it 
is the notorious peculiarity of this people, as a body, 
that they live in habitual readiness to remove. In 
this condition of universal affliction, how singular it 
is, that, among all people, the Jew is *^ an astonish- 
ment, a proverb, a by^word,'' Such is not the case 
with any other people. Among Christians, hea- 
thens, and Mohammedans ; from England to China, 
and thence to America, the cunning, the avarice, 
the riches, of the Jew are proverbial. And how 
wonderful have been their plagues ! The heart 
sickens at the history of their persecutions, and 

* Hosea iii. 4, 5. 



202 LECTURE VII. 

massacres, and imprisonments, and slavery. All 
nations have united to oppress them. All means 
have been employed to exterminate them. Robbed 
of property, bereaved of children ; buried in the 
dungeons of the inquisition, or burned at the stake 
of deplorable bigotry ; no people ever suffered the 
hundredth part of their calamities, and still they 
live ! It was prophesied that, as a nation, they 
should be restored ; consequently they were not 
only to be kept alive, but unmingled with the na- 
tions, every where a distinct race, and capable of 
being selected and gathered out of all the world, 
when the time for their restoration should arrive. 
The fulfilment of this, forms the most astonishing 
part of the whole prophecy. For nearly eighteen 
hundred years, they have been scattered and mixed 
up among all people ; they have had no temple, no 
sacrifice, no prince, no genealogies, no certain dwell- 
ing-places. Forbidden to be governed by their own 
laws, to choose their own magistrates, to main- 
tain any common policy ; every ordinary bond of 
national union and preservation has been wanting ; 
whatever influences of local attachment, or of lan- 
guage, or manners, or government, have been found 
necessary to the preservation of other nations, have 
been denied to them : all the influences of internal 
depression and outward violence which have ever 
destroyed and blotted out the nations of the earth, 
have been at work with unprecedented strength, for 
nearly eighteen centuries, upon the nation of 
Israel ; and still the Jews are a people, a distinct 
people, a numerous people — unassimilated with any 
nation, though mixed up with all nations. Their 
peculiarities are undiminished. Their national 
identity is unbroken. Though scattered upon all 
winds, they are perfectly capable of being again 
gathered into one mass. Though divided into the 
smallest particles by numerous solvents, they have 



LECTURE VII. 203 

resisted all affinities, and may be traced, unclianged, 
in the onost confused mixtures of human beings. 
The laws of nature have been suspended in their 
case. It is not merely that a stream has held on 
its way through the waters of a lake, without losing 
the colour and characteristic marks of its own cur- 
rent ; but that a mighty river, having plunged from 
a mountain-height into the depth of the ocean, and 
been separated into its component drops, and thus 
scattered to the ends of the world, and blown about 
by all winds, during almost eighteen centuries ; is 
still capable of being disunited from the waters 
of the ocean : its minutest drops, having never 
been assimilated to any other, are still distinct, un- 
changed, and ready to be gathered, waiting the voice 
that shall call again the outcasts of Israel and the 
dispersed of Judah. Meanwhile, where are the 
nations among whom the Jews were scattered . 
Has not the Lord, according to his word, ''•made a 
full end of them V* While Israel has stood uncon- 
sumed in the fiery furnace, where are the nations 
that kindled its flames ? Where the Assyrians and 
the Chaldeans? Their name is almost forgotten. 
Their existence is known only to history. Where is 
the empire of the Egyptians ? The Macedonians 
destroyed it, and a descendant of its ancient race 
cannot be distinguished among the strangers that 
have ever since possessed its territory. Where are 
they of Macedon ? The Roman sword subdued 
their kingdom, and their posterity are mingled in- 
separably among the confused population of Greece 
and Turkey. Where is the nation of ancient Rome, 
the last conquerors of the Jews, and the proud de- 
stroyers of Jerusalem ? The Goths rolled their flood 
over its pride. Another nation inhabits the ancient 
city. Even the language of her former people is 
dead. The Goths ! where are they ? The Jews I 

» Jer. xlvi. 28. 



204 LECTURE vri. 

where are they not ? They witnessed the glory of * 
Egypt, and of Babylon, and of Nineveh; they were 
in mature age at the birth of Macedon and of Rome: 
mighty kingdoms have risen and perished since the} 
began to be scattered and enslaved ; and now the^ 
traverse the ruins of all, the same people as when 
they left Judea, preserving in themselves a monu- 
ment of the days of Moses and the Pharaohs, as un- 
changed as the pyramids of Memphis, which they 
are reputed to have built. You may call upon the 
ends of the earth, and will call in vain for one living 
representative of those powerful nations of antiquity, 
by whom the people of Israel were successively 
oppressed ; but should the voice which is hereafter to 
gather that people out of all lands, be now heard 
from Mount Zion, calling for the children of Abra- 
ham, no less than four millions would instantly 
answer to the name, each bearing in himself un- 
questionable proofs of that noble lineage. 

What is this but miracle ? Connected with the 
prophecy which it fulfils, it is double miracle. 
Whether testimony can ever establish the credi- 
bility of a miracle, is of no importance here. This 
one is obvious to every man's senses. All nations 
are its eye-witnesses. 

Among the most striking and comprehensive, and 
yet particular prophecies, are those of Daniel. The 
history of the four great empires of Chaldea, Persia, 
Macedon, and Rome, is embraced in his predictions! 
We mention these, not that we intend to trace out 
their fulfilment, but merely, in passing, to insert a 
remarkable testimony concerning them from one of 
the most learned expositors of the prophetic scrip- 
tures, and another from the most learned and acute 
of the ancient opposers of Christianity. Bishop 
Newton, speaking of that portion of Daniel's pro- 
phecies which relates to the kingdoms of Egypt and 
Syria, from the death of Alexander the Great to the 



LECTURE VII. 205 

time of Antiocbiis Epiphanes, a period of 148 years, 
remarks : '' There is not so complete and regular a 
series of their kings ; there is not so concise and 
comprehensive an account of their affairs ; to be 
found in any author of those times. The prophecy 
is really more perfect than any history. No one 
historian hath related so many circumstances, and 
in such exact order of time, as the prophet hath 
foretold them ; so that it was necessary to have 
recourse to several authors, Greek and Roman, 
Jewish and Christian, and to collect here something 
from one, and to collect there something from 
another, for the better explaining and illustrating 
the great variety of particulars contained in this 
prophecy."* Thus far, the testimony of a learned 
friend of Christianity. The corresponding testimony 
of a learned enemy, we have in the celebrated Por- 
phyry, of the third century, to whom the exact cor- 
respondence between the predictions and the events 
was so convincing, that he could not pretend to 
deny it. He rather laboured to confirm it ; and 
from the very exactness of the fulfilment, forged his 
only weapon of defence, in the assertion that the 
prophecy could not have been written by Daniel, 
but must have been written by some one in Judea, 
in the time of Antiochus Epiphanes. + Others after 
him have asserted the same thing, not only without 
any proof, but contrary to all the proofs which can 
be had in cases of this nature. They preferred the 
denial of the plainest historical evidence of the time 
when the prophecy was written, to the acknowledg- 
ment that its author must have written '* by inspira- 
tion of God.'' Paine, however, whose willingness to 
escape the argument from prophecy cannot be ques- 
tioned, and who was probably ignorant of what 
Porphyry had acknowledged as to the correspond- 
ence between the words of this prophet and those of 
* Newton on Prophecy, ii. 149. t Lardner, iv. 215. 



206 LECTURE VII. 

subsequent history, confessed the authenticity of the 
book of Daniel. Here, then, we have one famous 
infidel acknowledging that the prophecy was written 
at the time and by the man to whom it is ascribed ; 
and another, verifying the exactness of its fulfilment 
in the history of a subsequent age. Paine denied the 
fulfilment; Porphyry the authenticity. Porphyry ac- 
knowledged the fulfilment ; Paine the authenticity. 
** He taketh the ivise in their own craftiness.** 

I now call your attention to the prophecies which 
went before concerning our Lord Jesus Christ. They 
are scattered every where throughout the prophetic 
portions of the Bible. " To him bear all the pro- 
phets witness.'' None of them could lay down the 
pen of inspiration till they had written something, 
directly or indirectly, of Jesus. May none of us lay 
down our lives, till we have done something for Jesus ! 

I. The first class of these predictions consists o^ 
those which relate to the time and circumstances of 
the advent of Christ. Daniel, A. C. 556, deter- 
mined the year of his coming, when 490 years 
should be accomplished from the going forth of the 
command to rebuild Jerusalem. Jacob, more than 
a thousand years before Daniel, had said it would 
be when the sceptre was departing from Judah, 
and a lawgiver from between his feet.* Haggai, 
and Isaiah declared that it would be before the 
destruction of Jerusalem, and during the existence 
of the second temple.f Micah designated Bethlehem 
Epharatah as his birth-place. J Many prophecies 
predicted that he should come, not only of the 
stock of Judah, but of the stem of Jesse. § Isaiah 
and Malachi spake of the messenger who should go 
before him, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to 
prepare his way.|| 

♦ Gen. xlix. 10. t Is. xl. 9— xli. 27. Hag. ii. 6—8. 
t Mic. V. 2. § Is. xi. 1 

i[ Is. xl. 3. Mai. iii. 1.— -iv. 5. 



LECTURE VII. ^07 

2. The next class of predictions, concerning our 
Lord, contains those which speak of his life, suffer- 
ings, death, resurrection, and the increase of his 
kingdom. These are so numerous and particular, 
and so familiar to most readers of the Bible, that 
we shall content ourselves with a rapid summary. 
They predicted that Christ, or Messiah, would be 
born of a virgin ;* that he should enter Jerusalem 
on the foal of an ass ;t that in his manner of teach- 
ing, he should be characterized by special gentleness 
and compassion;! that he would be distinguished 
as wise ** to speak a word in season to him that is 
weary ;§ that he should blind the eyes of the 
learned and proud,|| and preach good tidings to 
the poor and despised ; that under his ministry the 
lame should be made to walk, the deaf to hear, the 
blind to see, the dumb to speak, the captive to be 
loosed, and the dead raised up ;1[ that he should 
teach the perfect way, and be the instructor of the 
Gentiles ;** that he should be a sacrifice for sin, be 
rejected of the Jews, who themselves should be re- 
jected of God ;tt *« that the kings of the earth and 
all people should worship him ;U but that the people 
who rejected him should continue a distinct people, 
and yet be scattered over all nations, and wander 
about without princes, without sacrifices, without an 
altar, without prophets, looking for deliverance and 
not finding it, till a very distant period.'*§§ 

The correspondence between the several parti- 
culars related of the death of Christ, and the pre- 
dictioui scattered through the Bible, is extremely 
striking. The evangelists, in this respect, are but 
echoes of the prophets. I can give but a rapid 

* Is. vii. 14. t Zech. ix. 9. % Is. xlii. 1, 2, 3. 

§ Is. I. 4. II Is. V. 15. f Is. XXXV. 5, 6— ix. 2. 

** Is. xlii. 6. tt Is. liii.--viii. 14, U, 

t\ Is. Ix. 10, 11. 12, &c.~liii. 1-2. 

t§ Jer. xxxi. 36, — Hos. iii. 4, 5. 



208 LECTURE VII. 

sketch. These predictions inchide the treachery and 
awful end of Judas ;* the precise sum of money 
for which he betrayed his Master ; and the use to 
which it was put.f They specify not only the suf- 
ferings of Christ, but of what they should consist. 
That his back should be given to the smiters, his 
face to shame and spitting ;J that he should be 
put to death by a mode which would cause his 
hands and feet to be pierced ; that he should be 
wounded, bruised, and scourged ;§ that in his 
death he should be numbered with transgressors,|| 
and in his sufferings have gall and vinegar given 
him to drink ;^ that his persecutors should laugh 
him to scorn, and shake their heads, reviling him, 
and saying : " He trusted in the Lord that he would 
deliver him ; let him deliver him/'**" Although it 
was the custom to break the bones of those who 
were crucified, and although the bones of the 
thieves, crucified with him, were broken, yet it was 
predicted, that " not a bone of him should be 
broken ;"tt and moreover, that his garments should 
be divided, and lots cast for his vesture ;tt that while 
he should ^* make his grave with the wicked,'' as he 
did in being buried like the wicked companions of 
his death, under the general leave for taking down 
their bodies from the cross, he should, at the same 
time, make his grave *' with the rich," as was done 
when they buried him in the sepulchre of Joseph of 
Arimathea.§§ I might enumerate many more details 

* Ps. xli. 9— Iv. 12—15. t Zech. xi. 12, 13. 

t Is. 1. 6. ^ Zech. xii. 10.— Ps. xxii. 16. 

II Is. liii. 4, 5, 8, and 12. % Ps. Ixix. 21. 

** Ps. xxii. 7, 8. 

tt Numb. ix. 12. — Ex. xii. 40. — Ps. xxxiv. 20. 

tt Ps- xxii. 18. 

§^ Is. liii. 9.— The translation of this verse in Lowth's 
Isaiah is much more to the point than that of the common 
text : '' Ami his grave was appointed with the Avicked ; but 
with the rich man was his tomb." 



LECTURE vir. 209 

of prophecy centering upon the life and death of 
Christ. What have been mentioned are abundantly 
sufTicient for our present argument. I have only re- 
cited a concise list of the predictions. I cannot 
suppose any of you so unacquainted with the history 
of Christ, as not to be able, familiarly, to refer to 
all those passages in his life and death by which they 
were minutely and wonderfully fulfilled. Now, con- 
sider, that no question is raised by any one, whether 
these predictions were made and published several 
centuries before the birth of Christ. The enemies 
of Christ, his crucifiers, have been the librarians 
of these writings.* The Jews preserved them for 
us, with sacred care, for many hundreds of years. 
They were translated, from Hebrew into Greek, at 
least 200 years before Christ. The Jews then under- 
stood them to refer to the Messiah, as we do now ; 
and it was on account of some of them that a general 
expectation of the speedy coming of Messiah pre- 
vailed so widely in Judea at the time of the public 
appearance of Christ. 

That all these particulars were most remarkably 
combined in the person, character, works, sufferings, 
and burial of the Lord Jesus, I need not say. If the 
predictions did not originally refer to him, and only 
happened to be accomplished in him, it would be 
reasonable to suppose, that out of the innumerable 
millions of men that have lived since they were pub- 

* Augustine, in the fourth century, spoke very often of 
the great advantage which christians had in their arguments 
for the truth of the Gospel, from the subsistence and disper- 
sion of the Jewish people, who ev^ry where bear testimony 
to the antiquity and genuineness of the books of the Old 
jTestanient ; so that none could say they were afterwards 
forged by christians. He therefore calls the Jews the libra- 
rians of the christians; he compares them to servants that 
carry books for the use of children of noble families ; or that 
carry a chest or bag of evidence for a disputant. — Lardncr^ 
ii. 598. 



210 LECTURE VIT. 

lished, some other individual, if not hundreds, would 
have appeared, exhibiting the same correspondence. 
Where is the record of such an event? Can the 
pferson be mentioned, in whom there was even an 
approximation to the fulfilment exhibited in the his- 
tory of Jesus ? I need not say, that no one ever 
pretended to be able to find such a person. These 
prophecies describe a combination of gentleness with 
power ; merit with ignominy ; benevolence with con- 
tempt; they bring together details of ancestry, of 
family, of birth, of time, of works, of sufferings, of 
death, which it were ridiculous to pretend have been 
united in any individual whose name is in the annals 
of man, except the Son ofman^ Christ Jesus, 

But it may be said, that among these predictions, 

there are some which human design might have 

brought to pass. It may be suggested, that a band 

of men undertaking to promote an imposture, and 

having these predictions before them, might have 

selected for their leader one who had been born at 

Bethlehem, of the lineage of David, and might have 

ordered his appearance at the precise time of the 

prophecy. Let this be supposed, and let us overlook 

the fact that no possible motive can be assigned 

that could induce a band of impostors to desire the 

setting up of such a cause as that of Christ ; still, 

how would imposture contrive to unite in its leader 

the fulfilment of prophecies which, on one hand, 

foretold him as eminent for wisdom and benevolence ; 

and, on the other, for shame and suffering ? How, 

on this supposition, could all those predictions have 

been accomplished which relate to the agonies of the 

cross ? Would a deceiver seek crucifixion for the 

sake of fulfilling prophecy? How was it managed 

that one should betray him ; and afterwards, out of 

remorse, hang himself? How was it contrived that 

the enemies of Christ should measure the price of 

his blood at the e^^act sum predicted ; and then, 



LECTURE VII. 211 

that the mercenary traitor should return it to them 
again, and they should use it in purchase of the pre- 
dicted potter's field ? How did imposture so artfully 
combine in its cause all the persecutors of Christ, 
that, without any design to advance its interests, they 
should have chosen precisely that mode of execu- 
tion ; those expressions of contempt ; those instru- 
ments of torture ; those companions of his sufferings ; 
that mixture for his drink ; that severity to his body, 
while he was alive, and that forbearance to it after 
he was dead ; which, if they had been anxious to 
prove him the true Messiah, foretold in the Scrip- 
tures, would have composed the most effectual 
means they could possibly employ? Most evi- 
dently, the bitter adversaries of Christianity — not its 
friends — broug-ht out the demonstration that Jesus 
was he to whom gave all the prophets witness. 

And now is there any possible escape from the 
absolute necessity of acknowledging that the Spirit 
of God was in the writers of the Bible, and that this 
Spirit has testified of Jesus ? Will any one pretend, 
that in the idea of chance there is any explanation of 
the coincidences which have been mentioned ? It 
will not be useless to spend a moment on this matter 
of chance. It is conceivable that a prediction, 
uttered at a venture, confining its terms to but one 
event, and expressing that in a general way, may 
happen to result so plausibly as to seem like a genuine 
prophecy. But only let it descend to the minutise 
of time, place, and incidents, and it is evident that 
the possibility of its success, by a fortuitous concur- 
rence of events, will become extremely desperate. 
Hence the oracles of heathen antiquity always took 
good care to confine their predictions to one or two 
particulars, and to express them in the most general 
and ambiguous terms. Hence, in the whole range 
•of history, except the prophecies of the Scriptures, 
there is not a single instance of a prediction, 

p2 



212 LECTURE Vlt. 

expressed in unequivocal language, and descending 
to any minuteness, which bears the slightest claim 
to the praise of fulfilment. But to set this in a more 
impressive light, I will quote a few sentences from 
one of the most scientific laymen of the present day. 
'^ Suppose (says Olinthus Gregory) that, instead of 
the spirit of prophecy, breathing more or less in 
every book of Scripture, predicting events relative to 
a great variety of general topics, and delivering 
besides almost innumerable characteristics of the 
Messiah, all meeting in the person of Jesus; there 
had been only ten men in ancient times who pre- 
tended to be prophets, each of whom exhibited only 
Jive independent criteria as to place, government, 
concomitant events, doctrine taught, eflfects of doc- 
trine, character, sufferings, or death ; the meeting of 
all which in one person should prove the reality of 
their calling as prophets, and of his mission in the 
character they have assigned him : suppose, more- 
over, that all events were left to chance merely, and 
we were to compute, from the principles employed 
by mathematicians in the investigation of such sub- 
jects, the probability of these ffty independent cir- 
cumstances happening at alL Assume that there is, 
according to the technical phrase, an equal chance 
for the happening or the failure of any one of the 
specified particulars; then the probability against 
the occurrence of all the particulars in any way, is, 
that of the fiftieth power of two to unity; that is, 
the probability is greater than eleven hundred and 
twenty 'Jive millions of millions to one, that all these 
circumstances do not turn up even at distinct 
periods.*'* But this calculation, you must observe, 
specifies no particular period for these things to take 
place ; but allows, from the time of uttering the pre- 
dictions, to the end of the world, for all the fifty 
particulars to occur. But if a time be fixed, at or 

• Gregory's Letters, 



LECTURE VII. 213 

near which they must happen, the immense impro- 
bability that they will take place exceeds all the 
power of numbers to express. This, moreover, is on 
the supposition of every thing being under the dis- 
posal of that fiction of unbelief, a blind chance. 
How infinite does the improbability appear, when it 
is remembered, that ** all events are under the con- 
trol of a Being of matchless wisdom, power, and 
goodness, who hates fraud and deception ; who must 
especially hate it when attempted under his name 
and authority." This is enough, one would think, 
to silence for ever all pleas of chayice, as furnishing 
ari unbeliever the least opportunity of escape from 
the evidence of prophecy. What then is the conclu- 
sion to which, by the considerations presented in 
this lecture, we are authorized to come? 

First : That in the Bible, there is a great variety 
of prophecy relative to the Messiah, which has been 
so remarkably fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and so 
entirely unfulfilled in any other individual of whom 
we have any history, that the correspondence neces- 
sarily proves the predictions to have been given by 
inspiration of God, and Jesus Christ to be the person 
to whom that inspiration, in the uttering of those 
predictions, referred. 

Secondly : That the Bible, in thus containing 
genuine prophecies scattered through its several 
books, contains a revelation from God, and exhibits 
numerous and wide-spread impressions of the seal of 
divine authority. 

Lastly : That Jesus Christ, being thus pointed out 
and honoured by the Spirit of God breathing on the 
lips of holy men, who in various centuries before his 
coming concurred in rendering him their testimony, 
as they were moved by the Holy Ghost, was and is 
to come, no other than what he said — the Son of 
God — the Saviour of sinners — **King of kings, and 
Lord of lords.'* 



214 LECTURE VUl. 

** Behold, (saith He,) I come quickly: blessed is 
he that keepeth the sayings of the prophecy of this 
book." *^ He that confesseth me before men, him 
will I also confess before my Father who is in hea- 
ven." But *^ how shall we escape, if we neglect so 
great salvation V\ 



LECTURE VIII. 

PROPHECY. 

Our blessed Lord was a prophet, as well as the 
grand subject of prophecy. Not only did he pos- 
sess omnipotence to call up the dead from the 
sepulchre, but omniscience also to bring forth from 
the darkness of the future, what, to uninspired man, 
lies as secret as the mysteries of death. By pro- 
phecy, as well as miracles, he established the 
divinity of his mission. In the latter, his appeal 
was to the senses of eye-witnesses : ** The works that 
I dOy they bear witness of me.'' In the former, it 
was to the testimony of subsequent history : '* Now 
I tell you before it come to pass, that when it is 
come to pass, ye may believe that I am he,*' He 
predicted not only his own sufferings, and death, 
and resurrection, but the manner and circumstances 
attending them ; the treachery of Judas ; the denial 
of Peter; the particulars of his ignominious treat- 
ment in the council of the Jews, and under the 
hands of Pilate and his soldiers. He foretold the 
rapid spread of the Gospel ; the persecutions of his 
disciples ; the precise manner of Peter's martyrdom ; 
the continuance of John till after the destruction of 
Jerusalem; the rejection of the Jews, and the bring- 
ing of the Gentiles into the church of God. 

But none of our Saviour's prophecies are more 
impressive than those concerning the destruction of 



LECTURE VHU 215 

Jerusalem, contained in the Gospels of Mark and 
Luke ; but most at large in the twenty- fourth 
chapter of Matthew. These we select as the sub- 
ject of our consideration at present; believing we 
shall be enabled to show, by most impressive evi- 
dence, that Jesus did indeed possess the spirit of 
prophecy, and consequently was divinely commis- 
sioned in setting up the faith of the Gospel. 

There is but one preliminary question to be an- 
swered, at the commencement of this investigation : 
Is it well ascertained that these prophecies were 
published before the destruction of Jerusalem ? 

This has been already settled, in our lecture on 
the subject of authenticity ; in which it was shown 
that the several books of the New Testament were 
written in the age to which they are referred, and 
by the men whose names they bear. It will be 
sufficient to state in this place, that of the three 
evangelists who have related these prophecies, 
Matthew and Mark are well ascertained to have 
died, and there is good reason to suppose that 
Luke also was dead, before the destruction of Je- 
rusalem. 

The Gospel of Matthew, which contains the most 
complete account of the predictions in question, is 
universally acknowledged to have been written first. 
Its date is about the eighth year after the death of 
Christ. The destruction of Jerusalem being in the 
seventieth year of the christian era, the prophecies 
in relation to it were published by Matthew about 
thirty years, and were declared by our Saviour 
about thirty-seven years, before their fulfilment. 
Several years elapsed, also, between the publication 
of the same prophecies by Mark and Luke, and the 
events to which they relate. John, the only one of 
the four evangelists who lived and wrote subse- 
quently to the ruin of the holy city, is the only one 
who omits an account of the predictions concerning 



216 LECTURE Vlll. 

it. But we have the most satisfactory evidence, that 
no suspicion of an ex post facto origin can justly 
attach to these prophecies, in the important fact, 
that although familiarly quoted by the early christian 
writers, as striking evidence of the prophetic charac- 
ter of Jesus, we read of no writer against Christianity 
in the primitive centuries having attempted to para- 
lyze the argument by maintaining that they were 
not published till Jerusalem was destroyed. If 
enemies so near the events predicted had nothing 
to say, will any deny us the privilege of proceeding 
in our present investigation unembarrassed by any 
question on this head ?* 

There is a history of the destruction of Jerusalem, 
which, if it had been composed for the express pur- 
pose of attesting the complete accomplishment of 
our Lord's predictions, could hardly have been made 
more appropriate to our present object. It was 
written by an eye-witness of the tragedy ; a learned 
witness ; a witness who, having been first an emi- 
nent leader among the troops of Judea, and then a 
prisoner to the Roman commander, and continually 
kept about his person for the sake of his services, 
cannot be accused of having written without ac- 
curate information. His book was composed at 
Rome ; and having been presented by the author to 
the emperor Vespasian, and to his son Titus, who 
had commanded at the siege of Jerusalem, the latter 
not only desired its publication, but subscribed his 
own hand in confirmation of its correctness. It was 
also presented to, and approved by, several Jews, 
who had been present at the scenes described. f . 
We could not desire a more complete attestation of 
the fulfilment of our Saviour's prophecies than this 
book affords. And yet the writer was a Jew to the 

* On this subject, see some excellent remarks in Paley's 
Evidences, part ii. c. i. 

t Josephus* Life, §, 65, p. 23. — Contr. Apion. b. i. § 9. 



LECTURE VIII. 217 

day of his death, and consequently an enemy of 
Christianity, and could have had no design in favour 
of the prophetic spirit of its founder. I speak of 
Josephus. It is remarkable that one of the most 
minute prophecies in the Bible should have, from an 
enemy, the most minute of histories to show its ful- 
filment. No great event in profane history is related 
with so much attention to all the particulars con- 
nected with it, as is the destruction of Jerusalem by 
this Jewish writer. When we consider these things, 
and remember the extraordinary manner in which 
Josephus was several times protected from almost 
inevitable death, we may clearly discern the hand 
of a wise Providence preparing the way of the 
Gospel. A witness was preserved and chosen of 
God, to write an account of the divine judgments 
upon Jerusalem, whose testimony neither Jews nor 
heathens could deny or suspect. We proceed to 
compare his statements with the prophecies in 
question. 

I. Let us begin with those events which the Sa- 
viour foretold as signs of approaching desolation. 
Thus it is written : ** Take heed that no man deceive 
you, for many shall come in my name, saying, I am 
Christ, and shall deceive manyJ^* Here are two dis- 
tinct predictions. Many pretenders to the character 
of the Messiah, and their success in deceiving many. 
As the prophecy draws nearer to the chief event, it 
enlarges on this particular sign : " There shall arise 
false Christs and false prophets, and shall show 
great signs and wonders. Here it is intimated, that 
as the great catastrophe should approach, these de- 
ceivers would multiply ; and that they would pre- 
tend to signs and miracles. The very places where 
they would appear, and whither they would lead 
their followers, are also pointed out. " If they 
shall say unto you. Behold he is in the desert ; go 

* Malt. xxiv. 4, 5. 



218 LECTURE VIII. 

not forth : Behold he is in the secret chambers; be- 
lieve it notJ*'^ 

Now, it is worthy of note, that until the day 
when these words were uttered, there had been no 
events in Jewish history in any manner correspond- 
ing with those which they describe. Two years, 
however, had not elapsed before their fulfilment 
began. Simon Magus, very soon after the cruci- 
fixion, was heard boasting himself as the Son of 
God ; deceiving the people of Samaria with sor- 
ceries ; to whom they all gave heed, saying, this 
man is the great power of God,f Another, named 
Dositheus, a Samaritan, pretended that he was the 
Christ foretold by Moses. In about the tenth year 
after the death of Christ, appeared one Theudas, 
who assured the people that he was a prophet, pro- 
mising to show a miracle in dividing the waters of 
Jordan.J *' By such speeches,'' says Josephus, in 
the very words of the prophecy, ** he deceived 
many.''^ As we approach nearer the final event, 

* Matt. xxiv. 26. f Acts viii. 9, 10. 

t The impostor, mentioned above, must not be confounded 
with him of the same name, spoken of by Gamaliel, 
Acts V. 36. There were tvro noted characters of the name 
of Theudas. The one referred to by Gamaliel, appeared 
about thirty years prior to the time of the council which that 
learned Pharisee addressed. But he was a mere insurrec- 
tionist, making no pretension to any of the honours of that 
great prophet whom the Jews were expecting. The person 
referred to in the text, appeared in Judea in the time of 
Cuspius Fad us, the governor, and professed to be inspired, 
to be a prophet, and to have the gift of miracles. Judas of 
Galilee, or the Gaulonite, mentioned also by Gamaliel, was 
a political partisan, in opposition to the enrolment made by 
Cyrenius in Judea, whose doctrine was, that the Jews were 
free, and should acknowledge no dominion but that of God. 
Neither he nor the elder Theudas can with any propriety 
be numbered among " false Christs," or " false prophets," 
such as the Saviour spoke of in the prophecy under con- 
sideration. See Lardner, i. 221—225. 

§ Josephus' Antiquities of the Jews, lib. 20, c. v. I. 



LECTURE VIH. ^19 

(A.D. 55,) these deceivers multiply. " The coun- 
try was filled with impostors who deceived the 
people," and persuaded them to follow them into 
the wilderness ; where, as they said, they should see 
manifest wonders and signs."* Not only were the 
people thus seduced into the deserts, but also into 
'* the secret chambers.'' The inner apartments of 
the temple were the secret chambers referred to in 
the prophecy. Josephus relates, that a great multi- 
tude whom the Roman soldiers destroyed in the 
" cloisters'" of the temple, had been led there by a 
false prophet, who had made a public proclamation, 
that very day, that God commanded them to get 
upon the temple, and that there they would receive 
miraculous signs for their deliverance. At that 
crisis, " there was a great number of false pro- 
phets."t Thus have we all the particulars of the 
prophecy, so far as it has been quoted; — Many 
false Christs and prophets, deceiving many ; pre- 
tending to signs and wonders ; leading their fol- 
lowers into the deserts ayid secret chambers ; and 
multiplying as the destruction drew tiear. 

II. '* Ye shall hear of wars and rumours oj 
wars: see that ye be not troubled; for all these 
things must come to pass, but the end is not yet. 
For nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom 
against kingdom."l At this time, the Jews were at 
peace among themselves, and with all nations. To 
human view, there was so little reason to expect a 
war, that even some years after, when the emperor 
Caligula ordered his statue to be set up in the 
temple, and there was danger of slaughter, on ac- 
count of the resistance of the Jews, Josephus re- 
marks, that *^ some of them could not believe the 
stories that spoke of a war."§ Nevertheless, such 

* Josephus* Antiquities of the Jews, lib. 20, c. viii. 5. 
t Josephus* Wars of the Jews, lib. 6, c v. 2 and 3. 
I Matt. xxiv. 6, 7. § Wars, &c. lib. 2, c. x. 1. 



220 LECTURE Vltl. 

became in a short time the rumour of war, that the 
fields remained uncultivated on account of the public 
anxiety. The country was soon filled with violence. 
In Alexandria, Caesarea, Damascus, Ptolemais, 
Tyre, and almost every other city in which many 
Jews and heathens were mingled, fierce contentions 
arose, and dreadful slaughter ensued. In the words 
of the Jewish historian : " The disorders all over 
Syria were terrible. For every city was divided into 
parties armed against each other ; and the safety of 
the one depended on the destruction of the other. 
The days were spent in slaughter, and the nights 
in terror.''* In addition to these calamities, the 
Jewish nation rebelled against the Romans ; Italy 
was convulsed with contensions for the empire ; and, 
as a proof of the troublous and warlike character of 
the period, within the brief space of two years, four 
emperors of Rome suffered death. f 

IIL Another class of signs was predicted, as fol- 
lows : ** There shall be famines, and pestilences, 
and earthquakes in divers plaees.^'l These, to- 
gether with the signs previously mentioned, the 
Saviour said would be *Hhe beginning of sorrows J' 
There came a famine not long before the war, which 
extended all over the country of the Jews, and 
lasted with severity for several years. § Both before 
and after this, there were famines in Italy, which 
are mentioned by historians of those days.|| Pesti- 
lences raged in various places, as the full time for 
Jerusalem's cup of trembling drew nigh.lT Josephus 
speaks of one at Babylon. Five years before the 
destruction of the holy city, there was a great mor- 
tality at Rome, while various parts of the empire 
were visited with similar calamities. Earthquakes 

* Wars, &c. lib. 2, c. xviii. 1 and 2. 
t Keith on Prophecy. t Mat. xxiv. 7, 8. 

§ Acts xi. 25, — 30. Ant. lib. 20, c ii. 6. ; c. v. 2. 
II Ant. lib. 3. c. xv. 3. f Lardner, ii. 499. 



LECTURE VIH. 221 

were also among the signs of the times. Of these, 
the heathen historians, Tacitus, Suetonius, Philos- 
tratus, &c., speak of many. Crete, Italy, Asia 
Minor, and Judea, were visited at different times, 
and some of them repeatedly, with earthquakes.* 
Josephus describes one, in Judea, as so extraordi- 
nary in its awfulness, that " any one (he remarks) 
might easily conjecture that these wonders fore- 
showed some grand calamities that were coming.^f 

IV. To the signs already mentioned, we find, in 
Luke's account of these prophecies, the addition of 
y^ fearful sights, and great signs from heaven," 
These sights and signs Josephus sets himself to the 
work of narrating, with as much particularity as if 
he had been specially bent upon making good the 
words of Christ. He relates, that just before the 
desolating war, ^' a star resembling a sword stood 
over the city, and a comet that continued a whole 
year." At the feast of unleavened bread, and '* at 
the ninth hour of the night, so great a light shone 
round the altar and the holy house, that it appeared 
to be bright day-time ; which light lasted for half 
an hour.'' '^ The eastern gate of the inner court 
of the temple, which was of brass and vastly heavy, 
and had been with difficulty shut by twenty men, 
and had bolts fastened very deep into the firm floor, 
was seen to be opened of its own accord about the 
sixth hour of the night." This, the learned of Je- 
rusalem understood as a signal of approaching 
desolation. Moreover ** before sun-setting, chariots 
and troops of soldiers, in their armour, were seen 
running about among the clouds and surrounding 
cities." '< At the feast of Pentecost, as the priests 
were going by night into the inner court of the 
temple, they felt a quaking, and heard a great 
noise, and after that, they heard the sound as of a 
multitude, saying, < Let us remove hence.*" But 
* Lardner iii. 499. t Wars, &c., lib. 4. c. iv. 5. 



222 LECTURE VIII. 

the sign which Josephus considered the most im- 
pressive, was that of a man, named Jesus, who four 
years before the war, at a time of entire peace, 
having come to the feast of tabernacles, began sud- 
denly to cry aloud : ** A voice from the east — a 
voice from the west — a voice from the four winds — 
a voice against Jerusalem and the holy house — a 
voice against the bridegrooms and the brides ; and 
a voice against the whole people/' With this cry he 
went through all the city, day and night. No 
severity of punishment, no acts of kindness, could 
silence this voice. He spoke neither good nor ill to 
any, whether they gave him food or scourging. For 
seven years and five months, his solemn cry con- 
tinued ; until its warning was just about to be ful- 
filled. A little while before the city was taken, as 
he was going round upon the wall, he cried with 
his utmost force, '' Wo, wo to the city again, and 
to the people, and to the holy house ;" and just as 
lie added, " wo to myself also," when a stone from 
one of the engines immediately killed him.* 

However incredible the narrative of these signs 
may seem to some, it is not a little in its confirma- 
tion, that the Roman historian, Tacitus, speaking 
of the same time and place, says : " There were 
many prodigies presignifying their ruin, which were 
not to be av'Crted by all the sacrifices and vows of 
that people. Armies were seen fighting in the air 
with brandished weapons. A fire fell upon the 
temple from the clouds. The doors of the temple 
were suddenly opened. At the same time there was 
a loud voice, declaring that the gods were removing, 
which was accompanied with the sound as of a mul- 
titude going out. All which things were supposed 
by some to portend great calamities/'f Whether 
all these things did really take place, or whether 

* Wars, &c. lib. 6, c v. 3. 

t Lardner, iii. 613. Tacit. Hist. lib. 5, c. ix. — xiii 



LECTURE VIII. 223 

some or all of them were not the conceits of super- 
stitious and excited minds, I shall not discuss : nor 
is the question at all material to our present object. 
Certain it is, that they were regarded as realities at 
the time, and consequently were in effect, ^^ fearful 
sights and great signs from heaven^^ to the Jews, 
whatever they may have been in reality. It required 
as much of the spirit of prophecy to predict that 
the Jews should believe such things to have occur- 
red, as to predict any thing else that did certainly 
occur. Whatever we may conclude, therefore, con- 
cerning the singularly concurrent testimony of the 
Jewish and Roman historians, the prophecy of the 
Saviour was most impressively fulfilled. 

V. From the calamities of the nation and city, 
our Lord continued his prophecy to those of his own 
followers: ^'Before all these, they shall lay their 
hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up 
to the synagogues and into pinsons, being brought 
before kings and rulers for my name's sake,''^ 
" They shall kill you ; and ye shall be hated of all 
nations for my names sakeJ^f *' / will give you a 
mouth and wisdom, which all your adversaries shall 
not be able to gainsay nor resist.X For the proof of 
the accomplishment of all this, the Acts of the 
Apostles afford abundant evidence. Remember 
how Saul made havoc of the church, entering into 
every house ; punishing the christians in every 
synagogue, and persecuting them even unto strange 
cities, Peter and John were delivered to councils, 
Paul was brought before kings. The former were 
also imprisoned, Paul and Silas were not only im- 
prisoned, but beaten.^ There was given them indeed 
a wisdom, which their adversaries were not able to 
gainsay nor resist. The very discourses of Peter 

• Luke xxi. 12. t Matt. xxiv. 9. t Luke xxi. 15. 
§ Acts Yiii, 3.— xxvi. 10, 11. — iv. 5.— xviii. 12. — xxiv. and 
V — iv. 3. 



224 LECTURE VIIT. 

that caused his persecution, subdued thousands into 
obedience to the faith of Christ.* The murderers of 
Stephen were not able to resist the wisdom %oith 
which he spake.f The jailer that incarcerated Paul 
and Silas in the evening, was their convert before 
the morning.t Felix trembled, and Agrippa was 
almost persuaded to be a christian, under the 
speech of Paul. Stephen and James were put to 
death. There is reason to believe that none of the 
original apostles or evangelists, but John, died a 
natural death. Christians were counted as ihejilth 
of the world, being literally hated for the very name 
they bore. About six years before the destruction of 
Jerusalem, arose the tremendous persecution under 
Nero, when it was enough that any one was called 
by the name of christian, to lead him to torture. 
Tacitus bears witness, not only to their exquisite 
sufferings, but also to the fact that they were held 
in universal hatred on account of their religion and 
name.§ 

VI. '' Then shall many be offended, and shall 
betray one another, and hate one another; and 
because iniquity shall abound, the love of many 
shall wax cold:'\\ The apostle of the Gentiles, in 
his epistles, complains of Demas, and Phygellus, 
and Hermogenes, and many others in Asia, who 
turned away from him ; and that when he first ap- 
peared at the bar of Nero, no man stood with him, 
but all forsook him.% And Tacitus, speaking of the 
persecution by Nero, says: '^ At first, those who 
were seized confessed their sect ; and then, by their 
indication, a great multitude were convicted,''** 

VII. Immediately after the prediction of the out- 
ward persecutions and internal defections by which 

* Acts ii. 41. t Acts vi. 10. % Acts xvi. 32— 34. 
§ Lardner, iii. 498. Tac. Ann. 15, c. 44. 
II Matt. xxiv. 10—12. f 2 Tim. i. 15.— vi. tO.— iv. 16. 
** Ann. lib. xv. 



LECTURE VIII. 225 

the servants of Christ were to be troubled, there 
follows this remarkable prophecy : '* This Gospel of 
the kingdom shall he preached in all the worlds for 
a witness unto all nations ; and then shall the end 
come.''* The end, referred to, was that of the 
Jewish polity, which entirely ceased at the de- 
struction of the Jewish metropolis and temple. 
Jesus prophesied that before this, that is, in forty 
years from the time when he uttered these words, 
the Gospel would be preached in all the world. Of 
all that was then in futurity, what could have been 
more improbable, or to human view more impossi- 
ble, than this ? The Gospel was then received but 
by a handful of unlettered Jews. In a few days 
after, its author was crucified as a malefactor ; his 
disciples were scattered and discouraged ; his ene- 
mies triumphant, and the Gospel seemed at an end. 
When the infant church was gathered together in 
Jerusalem, immediately after the ascension of its 
Head, the number of the disciples that could be 
collected, was but one hundred and twenty. What, 
but the omniscience of God could have foreseen, 
that in less than forty years, that church would be 
extended into ali countries of the known world ? 
But thus it came to pass : *' It appears from the 
writers of the history of the church, that before the 
destruction of Jerusalem, the Gospel was not only 
preached in the Lesser Asia, and Greece, and Italy, 
the great theatres of action then in the world, but 
was likewise propagated as far northward as Scythia, 
as far southward as Ethiopia, as far eastward as 
Parthia and India, as far westward as Spain and 
Britain."! The epistles of Paul, in the New Testa- 
ment, were directed to churches then flourishing, in 
Rome, Corinth, Galatia, Ephesus, Philippi, Colosse, 
and Thessalonica. In the Epistle to the Romans, 
he asserts that the christian faith was then (ten years 
* Matt, xxm 14. t Newton, ii. 257, 258, 

Q 



226 LECTURE VIII. 

before Ae end) '^ spoken of throughout the world,''* 
To the Colossians, about three years after, he asserts 
that " the Gospel had (then) been preached to every 
creature under heaven,'' ■\ meaning, that to all nations, 
without distinction, it had been published. Tacitus 
bears witness that, in the sixth year before the de- 
struction of Jerusalem, (Nero's persecution,) the 
religion of Christ had not only extended over Judea, 
but through Rome also ; and that its followers were 
then so numerous, that '' a vast multitude" were 
apprehended and condemned to martyrdom.J Thus, 
impossible as such an event must have seemed at 
the time when this prophecy was uttered, the end 
did not come until the Gospel of the kingdom of 
Christ was preached '' in all the world." We 
know not which should be considered the most im- 
pressive evidence that God was with the Gospel — 
this wonderful fact, brought to pass by such means, 
and in the face of such universal and deadly oppo- 
sition ; or the prophetic eye by which the Saviour 
predicted, in circumstances so unpromising, that 
thus it would be. 

VIII. The next prophetic sign brings us almost 
to the awful catastrophe. '' When ye shall see 
Jerusalem compassed luith armies ;" or, as the 
expression is in Matthew, " When ye shall see the 
abomination of desolation stand in the holy place," 
'^ then know that the desolation thereof is nigh," 
*' Then let them which be in Judea flee to the 
mountains : let him that is on the house-top not 
come down to take any thing out of his house ; 
neither let him which is in the field return back to 
take his clothes."^ 

By the abomination of desolation standing in the 
holy place, Matthew expresses the same thing as 
when Luke speaks of Jerusalem being compassed 

* Rom. i. 18. t Col. i. 23. t Tac. Ann. lib. xv. 
% Luke xxi. 20. Matt. xxiv. 15—18. 



LECTURE VIII. 227 

with armies. The standards of the Roman armies 
had on them images to which idolatrous worship 
was paid, and which were therefore an abomination 
to the Jews. On this account, we read that a 
Roman general, when conducting his army through 
Judea towards Arabia, was besought by the prin- 
cipal Jews to lead it another way.* '' Every idol 
and every image," says Chrysostom, ** was called 
an ^ abomination among the Jews." These idola- 
trous ensigns being connected with a desolating 
army, constituted them the abomination of desola- 
tion ; and when the Roman army planted its stand- 
ards around the holy city, the abomination of deso- 
lation literally stood in the holy place, or on holy 
ground. This the Saviour predicted. It was to be 
the signal to christians that the desolation of Jeru- 
salem was nigh. Then they were to escape with 
haste to the mountains. The warning implied that, 
even after the city was encompassed with armies, 
they would have an opportunity to escape ; but, at 
the same time, that the opportunity would be brief. 
AH this came to pass. One would suppose that the 
christians, in having delayed till the city was sur- 
rounded with a besieging host, would thus have 
waited till all escape was cut off. But a remarkable 
providence took care that they should await the 
sign, and yet obey the admonition to flee. Cestius 
Gallus, the Roman general, at the commencement 
of the war, besieged the city ; took possession of 
the suburbs ; encamped over ' against the royal 
palace; and might easily, Josephus says, have got 
within the walls, and won the city. Indeed, *'many 
of the principal men were about to open the gates 
to him." But although the abomination of deso- 
lation was thus in the holy place, the followers of 
Christ were there also. The time of the end, there- 

* Ant. lib. 18. c. vi. 3. 
q2 



22B LECTURE VIII. 

fore, was not yet come. An opportunity must be 
found for them to flee. The Lord supplies this. 
Just as the city was ready to open its gates to the 
Roman chief, "he recalled his soldiers from the 
place — without having received any disgrace ; and 
retired from the city, without any reason in the 
tvorld'* This the Jewish historian expressly as- 
cribes to a special interposition of Providence; 
though he knew not its object. It could be ac- 
counted for on no military or prudential conside- 
rations. Josephus relates, that many principal men 
of Jerusalem embraced this opportunity to depart 
from the city as from a sinking ship.* A short time 
after, when the Roman armies were again approach- 
ing with the abomination of desolation towards the 
holy place, our historian states that a great multitude 
fled to the mountains.'^ Among these, were pro- 
bably the disciples of Christ. But we learn more 
certainly from ecclesiastical historians of the early 
centuries, that, at this crisis, all the followers of 
Christ took refuge in the mountainous regions be- 
yond Jordan ; thus obeying the prophetic warning 
of their Lord ; so that there is nowhere any men- 
tion of a single christian having perished in the 
siege and destruction of Jerusalem.| But as the 
Saviour forewarned them : what they were to do, 
they had to do quickly. For as soon as Jerusalem' 
was again encompassed with armies, it was sur- 
rounded entirely with a wall, so that, in the words 
of the historian, " Alt hope of escaping was now 
cut off from the Jews"^ 

Who the enemy would be, and the power, and 
fury, and universal spread of his desolations, the 
Saviour foretold, by the use of this proverbial ex- 
pression : '< Wheresoever the carcase is, there will 

* Wars, lib. 2. c. xx. 1. t Tb. lib. 4. c. viii. 2. 
t Lardner iii. ^07. Newton, ii. p. 26G. 
§ Wars, lib. 5. c. xii. 2, 3. 



LECTURE VIII. 229 

the eagles he gathered together.''* Prophecy often 
speaks a great deal in a few words. The carcass 
was the Jewish nation given over, as thoroughly 
corrupt and forsaken of God, to be devoured as 
by birds of prey. An army is distinguished by its 
banners. They constitute its characteristic insig- 
nia. The banners of the Roman army were sur- 
mounted by eagles — emblems of strength, of swift- 
ness, and of ferocity. By these the Saviour 
described it as that which would desolate Jerusa- 
lem. Literally, wherever the carcass was, these 
eagles were gathered. Josephus testifies, that all 
parts of the land participated in the desolations of 
Jerusalem. t The legions of Rome, like flocks of 
birds of prey, flew from city to city, spreading de- 
vastation and slaughter wherever they planted their 
standards. With eagle-swiftness, they descended 
upon the unprepared population ; with eagle- 
strength, they triumphed over every opposition ; 
with eagle-fierceness, they devoured and tore in 
pieces, sparing neither age nor sex, sending into 
hopeless slavery the few to whom the sword denied 
its mercy. The melancholy record of Jotapata re- 
lates that all its population were slain but infants 
and women. These were carried into bondage. 
The rest, forty thousand, were slaughtered. Joppa 
was demolished ; the neighbouring villages were 
destroyed ; the whole region was laid waste. Of 
all the population of Gamala, two women alone 
escaped. Here, notxcven infants were spared the 
sword. Such was the extreme awfulness of the 
slaughter, that many Jews in preference threw their 
children, their wives, and themselves, from the hill, 
on which the citadel was built, into the deep abyss 
below. The number that perished thus, was com- 
puted at five thousand. These are but a few cases 

* Matt. xxiv. 28. 

t Wars, lib. 4. c. viii. 1. 



230 LECTURE VIII, 

out of the many which illustrate the perfect accom- 
plishment of the prediction before us.* 

X. But our Lord foretold not only the enemy bv 
whom Jerusalem would be destroyed, but the means 
by which It would be taken. " The davs (said he) 
shall come upon thee, that thine enemies shall cast 
a trench about thee, and compass thee round, and 
keep thee m on every side.f A trench and a wall 
or embankment always go together in military 
operations. Both were certainly intended here. 
But It was exceedingly improbable that such a mea- 
sure would be resorted to in the siege of Jerusalem. 
Ihe nature of the ground, and the great extent of 
the city, rendered it extremely difficult. It had 
never been attempted in the previous sieges of the 
same place. It was not necessary, because, had 
the Roman general been content to wait a little, the 
tamme and the contending factions within the city 
would soon have delivered it into his possession. 
After all, it was contrary to the advice of his chief 
men, and was adopted only because a more pro- 
tracted siege would have been less glorious. The 
higher cause, however, was, that he was God's instru- 

srHhS^T minutely were the enemy and his desolations de- 
scnbed by Moses as much as 1500 years before the war! 

fhi Af fi *" 'lu"^ ^ "''"°" »Sai"st fiee from far, from 
the end of the earth as swift as the eagle flieth ; a nation 
whose tongue thou shalt not understand ; a nation of fierce 
countenance, which shall not regard the person of the old 
nor show favour to the young : and he shall eat the fruit 
of thy cattle, and the fruit of thy land, until thou be 
destroyed : which also shall not leave thee either corn 
wine, or 0|I, or the increase of thy kine, or flocks of thy 
sheep, until he have destroyed thee. And he shall besiege 
thee in all thy gates, until thy high and fenced walls come 
down, wherein thou trustedst, throughout all thy land : 
and he shall besiege thee in all thy gates throughout all 
thy .land which the Lord thy God hath given thee."-Deut. 
xxvin« 41/ — o^* 

t Luke xix. 43. 



LECTURE VIII. 231 

ment, unwittingly, to fulfil the words of Christ. Titus 
must confirm the prophetic character of Jesus. By 
building a wall about Jerusalem, he was to build up 
the defence of the Gospel. The city was therefore 
literally compassed round, and its inhabitants were 
kept in on every side by a wall and trench, put up 
by the troops of Titus, and measuring about five 
miles in circumference. Josephus is very particular in 
stating precisely the direction of the wall in its whole 
circuit.* 

XI. '* These he the days of vengeance,'' said the 
Lord ; ^^ for then shall he great tribulation, such as 
was not from the beginning of the world to this 
time, nor ever shall be''-\ Days of vengeance, in- 
deed, they were, when all that was written and 
threatened in Moses and the Prophets was fulfilled. 
As if Josephus had written with the very words of 
the Saviour in view, he bears record, that in his 
opinion, '' no other city ever suffered such miseries ; 
nor was there ever a generation more fruitful in 
wickedness, from the beginning of the world.'' '^ It 
appears to me, that the misfortunes of all men from 
the beginning of the world, if they be compared to 
these of the Jews, are not so considerable." *' For 
in reality it was God who condemned the whole 
nation, and turned every course that was taken for 
their preservation to their destruction." It is im- 
possible to describe the truth in this case. *• The 
multitude of those who perished (says our historian) 
exceeded all the destructions that man or God 
ever brought on the world."! At the commence- 
ment of the siege, immense multitudes having come 
up from all parts of the country to the feast of the 
passover, the nation, literally, was crowded into 
Jerusalem ; so that the city was supposed to have 

* Wars, &c. lib. 5, c xii. 2. f Luke xxi. 22. 

X Wars, &c. lib. 5, c. x. 5. — Preface to Wars, 4. — 
Wars, lib. 6, c. xiii. 4. — lib. 6, c. ix. 4. 



'^^ LECTURE Vlir. 



in It upwards of two millions seven hundred thou- 
sand souls. The miseries endured by this imprisoned 
multitude are mmutely detailed in the history of the 
siege, Famme commenced, and numbered its 
thousands of unburied and loathsome victims. This 
destroyer raged so widely, that the people devoured 
their shoes and girdles ; the soldiersf the leather on 

Jood. That which before they could not endure to see 
they now consented to eat. United to these desola-' 
IT "^^'^ ^^ remorseless cruelties of contending 
factions The c.ty was filled with robbers, who di! 

t'h^nJf frPfi'°° '"^ parties, more destructive 
than all the soldiery of the besiegers. Filled with 
rage and instigated by hunger, they alike refused 
o be at peace with each other, or to capitulate to 
the common enemy. They robbed the temple ; slew 
the priests at the altar ; defiled the sanctuar^ with 

th.v'/.^'?'^\ ^'^ "^^^P '^'^ °^her fromVd; 
they fired storehouses containing provisions for a 
siege of many years. Whenever any corn ap- 
peared, bands of robbers instantly seized it. Thiv 
searched every house in which they suspected 

children ; children spoiled it from the mouths of 
their parents. There was a lady of hi^h birth and 
much wealth who had come from the country, and 
was kept m Jerusalem by the siege. All her effects 

\"-1/" "i^l^^u^ '^^ ^^d «a^«J for herself and 
children, had been taken by the prowling bands 
that continually ranged the streets for prey Bv 
imprecations and reproaches, she endeavoured in 
vam to provoke them to take her life as well as 
bread. At last she prepared a feast. Keen hun- 
ger found out a lamb. A mother's desperation 
slew and served it. Having consumed a part, the 
rest was concealed. The smell of food soon 
brought in the wolves. They threatened instant 



LECTURE VIII. 233 

death, unless she discovered it. With bitter irony 
she assured them that a fine portion had been saved 
for them, and then uncovered what remained of the 
lamb. It was the half-eaten body of her infant son. 
Struck motionless with horror, they would not par- 
take of it. Then she upbraided them as pretending 
to more tenderness than a woman, and more com- 
passion than a mother. All the city, and the whole 
Roman camp, were filled with astonishment at this 
horrid evidence of the reigning wretchedness ; so 
that the dead were envied for having escaped the 
sight of such miseries.* But the woe went on. 
The prisoners taken in endeavouring to desert the 
city were nailed on crosses by the Roman soldiers, 
*' some one way, some another, as it were in jest,*' 
around the outside of the walls, " till so great was 
the number, that room was wanting for crosses, and 
crosses were wanting for bodies. "f Thus had the 
Jews, forty years before, crucified the Lord of glory 
without the walls, with cruel jesting and bitter 
mockery.! Those who continued within the city 
took refuge in caverns, aqueducts, sewers, and other 
secret places, to escape from one another. Titus, 
as he beheld the dead bodies that had been thrown 
from the walls into the valleys, *' lifted up his hands 
to heaven, and called God to witness that this was 

* Kow exactly did Moses, at least fifteen hundred years 
before, depict this very scene 1 He described even the rank, 
quality, and habits of the unhappy woman. " The tender 
and delicate woman among you, which would not adventure 
to set the sole of her foot upon the ground for delicateness 
and tenderness, her eye shall be evil toward the husband of 
her bosom, and toward her son, and toward her daughter, 
and toward her young one that cometh out from between her 
feet, and toward her children which she shall bear : for she 
shall eat them for want of all things secretly in the siege 
and straitness wherewith thine enemy shall distress thee in 
thy gates.'' — Deut. xxviii. 56, 57. 

t Wars, &c. lib. 6, c. iii. 4.— lib. 5, c. xi. I. ^ 
t " His blood be on us, and on our children." 



234 LECTURE VIII. 

not his doing."* The number of those who perisl.ed 
during these *^ days of vengeance," is computed by 
Josephus at upwards of one million three hundred 
thousand; and of these, 1,150,000 were of Jerusa- 
lem, beside ninety-seven thousand carried into 
slavery, and an innumerable multitude who perished 
uncounted in various places, through famine, banish- 
ment, and other miseries. f Add to this destruction 
of life, the complete ruin of their holy city and mag- 
nificent temple, dearer to the Jews than life; add, 
moreover, the universal desolation and almost depo- 
pulation of Judea ; and you will find no difficulty in 
interpreting the Saviour's prediction of ** a tribula- 
tion such as was not from the beginning of the 
world.'\ It was when our compassionate Redeemer 
had all this in full prospect, that ** he beheld the 
city" from the mount of Olives, *' and wept over it, 
saying. If thou hadst known, even thou, in this thy 
day, the things that make for thy peace, but now 
they are hid from thine eyes. ''J How did the anti- 
cipation of all this misery affect him, when, as he 
was going to his cross, he turned to the women 
who wept and wailed because of him, and said, 
** Daughters of Jerusalem, weep not for me, but 
weep for yourselves and your children; for behold the 
days are coming, in the which they will say. Blessed 
are the barren, and the wombs that never bare, and 
the paps which never gave suck. Then shall they 
begin to say to the mountains, Fall on us, and to the 
hills. Cover us !"§ Who can help reflecting here 
upon that solemn question, ^' What shall the end 6e, 
of them that obey not the Gospel of God ?" 

XII. We come now to the work of destruction, 
which forms the most remarkable particular in this 
wonderful prophecy. The ruin of the city was 
foretold in these words : *' They shall lay thee 

* Lib. 5, c. xii. 4. t Lardner, iii. 529. 

X Luke xix. 42. § Luke xxiii. 28, 29, 30. 



LECTURE VIII. 235 

even with the ground, and thy children within 
thee ; and they shall not leave in thee one stone 
upon another that shall not he thrown down^''^ 
The ruin of the temple was foretold as follows. 
As the disciples were showing to Jesus the stupen- 
dous buildings of the temple, he answered : " Verily 
I say unto you, There shall not he left here one 
stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down J' \ 
Most wonderfully was the spirit of prophecy mani- 
fested in these words. Every thing conspired to 
make the events appear improbable, and to p":"event 
their occurrence, when the time predicted had ar- 
rived. Jerusalem was surrounded with three mas- 
sive walls of immense strength, rendering its gar- 
rison almost unassailable, except by famine, or pes- 
tilence, or internal discord.J Never were men more 
perfectly devoted to the defence of a city than 
those of Jerusalem. None cared. for life at the 
expense of her ruin. The garrison was ten times 
the number of the besiegers. It was, therefore, 
exceedingly improbable that the city would even be 
entered by the Romans. Such was the testimony 
of Titus, as he looked around upon its towers. 
"We have certainly,'* said he, ** had God for our 
helper in this war. It is God who has ejected the 
Jews out of these fortifications. For what could 
the hands of men, or any machines, do towards 
throwing down such fortifications. "§ But it was 
equally improbable, even if the city were taken, 
that such complete destruction would be made of 
all therein. Think of the difficulty of completely 
destroying such an immense extent of triple wall, 

* Luke xix, 44. t Matt. xxiv. 2. 

X Gibbon, speaking of the strength of Jerusalem at this 
time, says : " The craggy ground might supersede the neces- 
sity of fortifications, and her walls and towers would have 
fortified the most accessible plain." — Decline and Fall, vol. 
viii. c. Iviii. p. 144. 

§ Wars, lib. 6. c. ix. 1. 



236 LECTURE VIII. 

and of buildings within. Think of the temple I 
What a pile to be laid low ! Its walls enclosed 
more than nineteen acres ; that of the eastern 
front rose to a height of nearly eight hundred feet 
from its base in the valley beneath. In this, and 
the other walls, the stones were immense, the largest 
measuring sixty-five feet in length, eight in height, 
and ten in breadth. How great the difficulty of a 
thorough levelling of such a structure, even undei 
the instigation of the strongest motive ! But what 
motive was likely to excite the Romans to such 
destruction ? They prided themselves upon a vene- 
ration for the arts, and upon the sacred care with 
which, in all their conquests, the monuments of 
architectural taste were protected. The temple was 
emphatically such a monument. The immensity of 
its walls; its splendid gates and beautiful marble 
colonnades ; the glory of its golden sanctuary ; the 
grandeur of its whole appearance ; and all its asso- 
ciations of antiquity and of sacredness, constituted 
the temple of Jerusalem precisely such an object as 
Roman commanders had always gloried in pre- 
serving from the desolations of conquest. Even 
barbarians were used to spare such monuments in 
their march of devastation. Genseric, when, with 
his Moors and Vandals, he had sacked the city of 
Rome, spoiled her wealth, and carried away the 
ornaments of her temples and capitol, but spared 
her noble structures ;* and to this day, after all 
the scenes ot war that have raged through her 
streets, the pillar of Trajan, the triumphal arch of 
Titus, the unmutilated Pantheon, and the noble 
CoUiseum, with numerous other monuments of 
art, attest the ancient glory of the mistress of the 
world. How often have hostile armies filled the 
streets of Athens, and hordes of Gothic barbari- 
ans encamped amidst her sanctuaries ; and yet the 

* Gibbon, vol. 5. 



LECTURE VIII. 237 

beautiful temple of Theseus is scarcely injured, as 
a model of architecture, and the Parthenon, 
though defaced and robbed, remains, a noble ex- 
ample still of the grandeur and purity of Athenian 
taste in the age of Phidias and Pericles. How im- 
probable then must it have seemed to one behold- 
ing the temple in the days of our Lord, that Ro- 
mans should lay it even with the ground. Much 
more improbable, had the cultivated taste, and the 
mild, amiable, and humane disposition of Titus, 
their commander, been anticipated. Still more im- 
probable, when it is remembered how strongly he 
was bent upon saving the city and temple from 
destruction ; how he employed all the means in 
his power to induce the Jews to surrender, before 
such extremities were necessary.* When he had 
reached the temple, and saw the danger it was in 
of being sacrificed to the obstinacy of its defenders, 
and the rage of his own soldiers, he was '' deeply 
affected," and appealed to the gods, to his army, 
and to the Jews, that he did not force them to 
defile the holy house. " If (said he) you will 
change the place whereon you will fight, no Roman 
shall either come near your sanctuary, or offer any 
affront to it ; nay, 1 will endeavour to preserve your 
holy house, whether you will or not."f But the Lord 
of that temple had said, " Behold, your house is 
left unto you desolate.'' God would not suffer the 
prophetic words of his Son to return unto him void. 
Now, therefore, even the authority of Titus w^as of 
no avail with his troops. Now the discipline of the 
Roman legion was broken up, that all that was 
written might be fulfilled. When the fire first 
reached the temple, their commander despatched a 
force to extinguish it. As it broke out again, he 
again used his authority to save the edifice. A sol- 

* Wars. &c., lib. 5. c. yiii. 1. c ix. 2. c xi. 2. lib. 6. 
c. ii. 1. f A^'^ars, lib. G, c. ii. 4. 



238 LECTURE VIII. 

dier, disobeying the will of his general, threw fire 
into the golden window of the inner sanctuary. At 
this, Titus, followed by all his chief officers, rushed 
to the place, and, by voice, and gesture, and force, 
exerted himself most earnestly to prevail with his 
troops to spare the building. He ordered a centurion 
■o punish the disobedient. But neither his threaten- 
ngs nor persuasions could arrest their fury. At last, 
a soldier, taking advantage of his absence, when he 
had gone out of the sanctuary to restrain the others,^ 
*' threw fire upon the holy gate in the dark ; whereby 
the flame burst out from within the holy house im- 
mediately."* And thus was it devoured by the fire. 
And now orders were given to demolish to the foun- 
dation the whole city and temple. Nothing was 
spared of the former but three towers, and so much 
of the wall as was required for a shelter to the 
garrison to be stationed there. '' As for all the rest 
of the whole circumference of the city, it was so 
thoroughly laid even with the ground, by those who 
dug it up to the foundation, that there was nothing, 
left to make those who came thither believe it had 
ever been inhabited.^f In quest of plunder, the 
soldiers literally turned up the ground on which the 
city and temple had stood, searching the sewers and 
aqueducts. Last of all, it is related by the Jewish 
Talmud and Maimonides, that a captain of the army 
of Titus (Terentius Rufus) " did with a ploughshare 
tear up the foundations of the temple."! '' A plough- 
share," says Gibbon, '' was drawn over the conse- 
crated ground, as a sign of perpetual interdiction." 
Thus literally fulfilling that prophecy of Micah : 
'' Therefore shall Zion, for your sakes, be ploughed 
as a field, and Jerusalem become heaps, and the 
mountain of the house as the high places of the 
forest. "% How forcibly is the perfect fulfilment ot 

, *Wars, lib. G, c iv. 2—5, &c. t lb. lib. 7, c. i. 1. 
t Whitby on Matt. xxiv. 2. ^ Mic iii. 12. 



LECTURE VIII. 239 

the Saviour's prediction illustrated in the speech of 
Eleazar to a remnant of Jews in the city of Masada : 
** Where is now that great city, fortified by so many 
walls, and fortresses, and towers; which could 
hardly contain the instruments prepared for the war, 
and had so many ten thousands of men to defend it ? 
Demolished to the very foundations ; and hath no- 
thing left but the camp of the destroyers among its 
ruins : some unfortunate old men also lie upon the 
ashes of the temple, and a few women are there 
preserved alive, by the enemy, for our bitter shame 
and reproach."* 

, XIII. But the prophecy of our Lord did not end 
with the destruction of the city, and of the civil and 
ecclesiastical polity of the Jews. His omniscient 
eye followed the unhappy race in their subsequent 
dispersions and afflictions ; '* They shall fall by 
the edge of the sword, and shall he led away 
captive into all nations''^ How many fell by 
the edge of the sword, in fulfilment of these words, 
I need not state. Blood flowed through the streets 
of Jerusalem like a river. But many who escaped 
the sword were led away captive into various parts 
of the earth. Before the city was taken, it is re- 
lated that an ** immense number' of deserters, having 
fallen into the hands of the besiegers, were sold 
" with their wives and children."! Besides ninety- 
seven thousand who went into slavery from Jeru- 
salem alone, there were sent from Tarichea to Nero, 
six thousand choice young men, while thirty thou- 
sand, from the same place, were sold. Similar 
convoys of slaves were marched from many other 
desolated towns. Of the captives from Jerusalem, 
the tall and handsome were carried to Rome, to grace 
the triumphal entry of Titus. Of the remainder, 
many were sent as slaves to the public works in 

' * Wars, lib. 7, c. viii. 7. t Luke xxi. 34. 

% Wars, lib. 6, c. viii. 2. . 



240 LECTURE VIII. 

Egypt; but the greater number were distributed 
through the Roman provinces, literally '' into all 
nations;' to be slain by gladiators, or exposed to 
wild beasts in the shows of the amphitheatre. 
From that time to the present, the history of all 
the nations of Europe, Asia, and Africa, is filled 
v^ith testimonies to the prophetic spirit of Him, who, 
when Jerusalem was in peace and strength, pre- 
dicted the approaching and yet existing calamities 
of her sons. In what country of the world, as 
then known, have they not been persecuted and 

enslaved ? 

But in addition to the captivity of the people, 
'' Jerusalem (said the Lord) shall be trodden down 
of the Gentiles until the times of the Gentiles 
he fulfilled^ It is well ascertained, by correspond- 
ing passages of the Bible, that by this expression^ 
the times of the Gentiles being fulfilled, was in- 
tended the universal ingathering of the nations to 
the faith of Christ. This has not yet arrived. Je- 
rusalem is therefore still trodden down of the Gen- 
tiles, just as she. has been ever since the ploughshare 
of the Roman desolation was first driven over the 
ruins of her temple. The hand of Providence, in 
the uninterruptetd fulfilmen of this prediction down 
to the present time, is wonderfully manifest. Two 
things are specially to be noted in the prophecy : First, 
that the Jews were never to be re-established in Je- 
rusalem ; and secondly, that it was not only to be in 
possession of, but to be '' trodden down of the Geii- 
tiles;' until the times of the Gentiles should be 
fulfilled. That the Jews have never been re-esta- 
lished in Jerusalem since its destruction, has not 
been owing to any want of desperate effort on their 
part ; nor because the power of the Gentiles has not 
been vigorously employed in their behalf. In about 
sixty-four years after their almost total expulsion 
from Judea, under the conquest of Titus, Jerusalem 



LECTURE VIII. 241 

was partially rebuilt by the emperor Adrian. A 
Roman colony was settled there, and all Jews were 
forbidden, on pain of death, to enter therein, or 
even to look at the city from a distance. Soon after 
this, the Jews revolted with great fury, and made a 
powerful effort to recover their city from the heathen. 
They were not subdued again without great loss to 
the Romans, and immense slaughter among them- 
selves. 

In the reign of Constantine the Great, their effort 
was repeated, and terminated, as before, in perfect 
defeat, with increased massacre and oppression. 
But in the person of the nephew of Constantine, 
their zeal for the rebuilding of their temple was asso- 
ciated with the determination of the emperor Julian 
to overthrow Christianity ; and between the power of 
a Roman sovereign with a victorious ajrmy at his feet, 
and the exulting enthusiasm of the whole remnant 
of the Jewish people, a union was formed for the 
single object of rearing up the temple with its an- 
cient ritual, and of planting around it a numerous 
colony of Jews, which, to all human judgment, bore 
the assurance of complete success. The grand ob- 
ject of Julian was to convert ** the success of his 
undertaking into a specious argument against the 
faith of prophecy, and the truth of revelation."* A 
decree was issued to his friend Alypius, that the 
temple of Jerusalem should be restored in its pris- 
tine beauty. To the energies of Alypius was joined 
the support of the governor of Palestine. At the 
call of the emperor, the Jews from all the provinces 
of the empire assembled in triumphant ej^ultation on 
the hills of Zion. Their wealth, strength, time, even 
their most delicate females, were devoted with the 
utmost enthusiasm to the preparation of the ground, 
covered then with rubbish and ruins. But was the 
temple rebuilt ? The foundations were not entirely 

* Gibbon. 
R 



242 LECTURE VIII. 

laid ! Why ? Was force deficient ? or zeal, or 
wealth, or perseverance, when Roman power and 
Jewish desperation were associated ? Nothing was 
lacking. '' Yet (says Gibbon) the joint efforts of 
power and enthusiasm were unsuccessful, and the 
ground of the Jewish temple still continued to ex- 
hibit the same edifying spectacle of ruin and deso- 
lation/' There was an unseen hand, which neither 
Jews nor emperors could overcome. The simple 
account of the defeat of this threatening enterprise 
of infidelity is thus given by a heathen historian of 
the day, a soldier in the service, and a philosopher 
in the principles, of Julian. '' Whilst Alypius, as- 
sisted by the governor of the province, urged with 
vigour and diligence the execution of the work, 
horrible balls of fire breaking out near the founda- 
tion, with frequent and reiterated attacks, rendered 
the place, from time to time, inaccessible to the 
scorched and blasted workmen ; and the victorious 
element continuing in this manner obstinately and 
resolutely bent, as it were, to drive them to a distance^ 
the undertaking was abandoned."* ** Such authority 
should satisfy a believing, and must astonish an in- 
credulous mind,'' acknowledges even the sceptical 
Gibbon. He cannot but own that '' an earthquake, 
a whirlwind, and a fiery eruption, which overturned 
and scattered the new foundations of the temple, are 
attested, with some variations, by contemporary and 
respectable evidence." One writer, who published 
an account of this wonderful catastrophe, in the very 
year of its occurrence, boldly declared, says Gibbon, 
that its preternatural character was not disputed, 
even by the infidels of the day 4 Another speaks 
of it thus: '* We are witnesses of it; for it hap- 
pened in our time, not long ago. And now, if you 
should go to Jerusalem, you may see the foundations 

* AmmianusMarcellinus. 
.,t Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. iii. chap, xxiii. 



LECTURE VIII. 243 

open ; and if you inquire the reason, you will hear 
no other than that just mentioned.'** 

Whether this attempt of Julian was defeated by 
miraculous interposition, is a question which our pre- 
sent object does not require us to argue. f Two 
things are certain. First : That the power and 
wealth of the Gentiles were united with the devoted 
enthusiasm of the Jews, to defeat the prophecy of 
Christ, by rebuilding the temple, and by re-estab- 
lishing its ritual, and by reorganizing a Jewish 
population as possessors of Jerusalem. Secondly : 
That, contrary to all expectation, when nothing was 
lacking for the work, and none in the world lifted a 
finger against it, it was suddenly abandoned, on 
account of sundry alarming and singular phenomena 
bursting from the original site of the temple, by 
which even the fanaticism of the Jews was deterred, 
and the enmity of Julian to the Gospel defeated. 
These undeniable facts are sufficient to show, with 
impressive evidence, the hand of God protecting the 
prophetic character of our Lord. When, in con- 
nection with these, you consider the great anxiety 
so universally felt among the Jews of all centuries, 
to enjoy the privilege of living and dying in Jeru- 
salem ; that no risk of life, or sacrifice of property, 
would be thought too great for the purpose of once 
more setting up the gates and altars of the holy 
city ; that the nation is now as numerous as at any 
period of its ancient glory ; and yet that, during 
almost the whole period since the destruction of 
Jerusalem, so entirely have Jews been prevented 
from living on her foundations, that they have had 
to purchase dearly the permission to come within 
sight of her hills ; and to this day are taxed and 
oppressed to the dust, as the cost of being allowed 

* Chrysostom. See Lardner, iv. 324. 
t See the miraculous character of this event very abl/ 
ailvocated in Bishop Warburton's Julian. 

R 2 



244 LECTURE VIII. 

to walk her streets, and look at a distance, upon 
her mount Moriah ; you will acknowledge that the 
prediction of our Saviour, in reference to their ex- 
clusion from Jerusalem, has been not only most 
strikingly fulfilled, but fulfilled in spite of the most 
powerful causes and efforts for its defeat. 

But it was predicted that Jerusalem should not 
only be possessed by the Gentiles, but '' trodden 
down' by them, till their times should be fulfilled. 
What the soldiers of Titus did, has already been 
stated. From that time, during sixty-four years, a 
Roman garrison alone inhabited the ruins. At the 
end of these years, the city was rebuilt by the em- 
peror Adrian, under the name of (Elia; a Roman 
colony was planted there ; all Jews were banished, 
on pain of death ; every measure was used, to 
destroy sacred recollections, and desecrate what 
were esteemed as holy places. The city was conse- 
crated to Jupiter Capitolinus ; a temple was erected 
to the pagan god, over the sepulchre of Jesus ; a 
statue of Venus was set up on mount Calvary; and 
the figure of a swine placed in marble on the gate 
that looked towards Bethlehem. Jerusalem con- 
tinued in possession of the Roman emperors till sub- 
dued in the year 637, A. D., by the Saracens. The 
king of Persia had, in the mean while, besieged and 
plundered it, but his dominion was too short-lived 
to claim an exception from this statement.* In the 
hands of Mohammedans, sometimes of Arabian, 
sometimes of Turkish, and sometimes of Egyptian 
origin, it continued to be literally trampled down 
and desecrated, during a period of more than four 
hundred years ; when, having been taken by the 
crusaders, its government was assumed by one 
of their leaders, and christians alone were allowed 
to dwell therein. Only about eighty-eight years 
elapsed, however, before the crescent of Mohammed 

* Gibbon's Decline and Fall, vol. vi. p. 206. c. xlvi. 



LECTURE VIII. , 245 

was again planted upon the hill of Zion ; where, to 
this day, it has remained, with a single trifling ex- 
ception, undisturbed either by Jew or Christian. 
During the seven centuries of this uninterrupted 
dominion of Mohammedanism, Jerusalem has been 
captured and recaptured, again and again, by the 
various contending families and factions of the fol- 
lowers of the Arabian prophet. The desolations of 
war, the marches of contending hosts, have indeed 
** trodden down' her melancholy hills. In the six- 
teenth century, when Selim, the ninth emperor of 
the Turks, visited the city, it lay, just as it had 
been seen by the famous Tamerlane more than one 
hundred years before, ** miserably deformed and 
ruined,*' inhabited only by a few christians, who 
paid a large tribute to the sultan of Egypt for the 
possession of the holy sepulchre.''* Its condition 
still, is thus stated by a recent traveller : " At every 
step, coming out of the city, the heart is reminded 
of that prophecy, accomplished to the letter, ' Jeru- 
salem shall be trodden down of the Gentiles,' All 
the streets are wretchedness ; and the houses of 
the Jews more especially (the people who once held 
a sceptre on this mountain of holiness) are as dung- 
hills." "No expression could have been invented 
more descriptive of the visible state of Jerusalem, 
than this single phrase, ' trodden down' ''f " Not 
a creature is to be seen in the streets," says another 
traveller, " not a creature at the gates, except, now 
and then, a peasant gliding through the gloom, 
concealing under his garments the fruits of his 
labour, lest he should be robbed of his hard earn- 
ings by the rapacious soldier. The only noise heard 
from time to time, in the city, is the galloping of 
the steed of the desert."! '' The Jerusalem of 
sacred history is, in fact, no more. Not a vestige 

* Newton on the Prophecies, ii. 319—334. 

t Jowett's Researches, p. 200. % Chateaubriand. 



246 LECTURE VIII. 

remains of the capital of David and Solomon ; not 
a monument of Jewish times is standing. The very 
course of the v;^alls is changed, and the boundaries 
of the ancient city are become doubtful/'* 

Thus, during a period of seventeen hundred and 
sixty years, have the captivities, and dispersions, 
and oppressions of the Jewish people, together with 
the desolate condition of their city and temple, 
most signally attested the prophetic character of 
our Lord. And shall we not hence be confident 
that what remains of his prediction will be accom- 
plished ? Will not the times of the Gentiles be 
fulfilled ? Will not Jerusalem continue, until then, 
to be trodden down of the Gentiles? And then, 
will it not cease to be subject to them ? And does 
not the expression of the prophecy imply that it will 
be again rebuilt and possessed by the" Jews in the 
day when '' all Israel shall be saved V " For what 
reason can we believe that, though they are dis- 
persed among all nations, yet, by a constant miracle, 
they are kept distinct from all, but for the further 
manifestation of God's purposes towards them ? 
The prophecies have been accomplished to the 
greatest exactness in the destruction of their city, 
and its continuing still subject to strangers; in the 
dispersion of their people, and their living still sepa- 
rate from all people ; and why should not the 
remaining parts of the same prophecies be as fully 
accomplished in their restoration, at the proper 
season, when the times of the Gentiles shall be ful- 
filled V'i 

We have now exhibited the exact fulfilment of 
all the particulars of this remarkable prophecy, 
with one exception. The Lord specified the time 
of those great events which he so minutely foretold. 
** This generation shall not pass away till all these 
things be fulfilled:* Forty years had not elapsed 

* Modern Traveller, Palestine, 75. t Newton, ii. 336. 



LECTURE VIII* 247 

from the date of this prediction, before all things 
referred to in it had taken place. 

And now let me add but a few words in con- 
clusion. 

No charge can be brought against the prophecy 
which we have been exhibiting, on the score of 
obscurity or ambiguousness of expression. It is 
expressed in the plainest terms, and admits of but 
one interpretation. Nothing can be said in detrac- 
tion from its claim to inspiration, on the ground of 
its being general in its expression. It is singularly 
particular, as well as comprehensive. Nothing can 
be said in denial of the complete correspondence 
between these various predictions and the history of 
the times and places to which they refer. We have 
drawn the evidence from sources which cannot be 
suspected of any partiality to the prophetic charac- 
ter of Jesus. The History of the Wars of the Jews 
by Josephus, the Jewish priest; the Annals by 
Tacitus, a Roman consul ; and the History of the 
Decline and Fall of the Roman empire by Gibbon, 
the English sceptic, are all the vouchers we require. 
What, then, is the alternative to which the student 
of prophecy is reduced ? He must either acknow- 
ledge that Jesus was possessed of the spirit of 
genuine prophecy ; or, that he was so sagacious as 
to be able to foretell all these particulars, when no 
one else could see any sign of them ; or that the 
Gospels containing these predictions were written 
after the events. The first, the sceptic is resolved 
at all hazards to deny i the second he cannot sup- 
pose ; the last he must assert, or give up his cause. 
For the same reason, therefore, that the heathen 
Porphyry, when he could not deny the strict corre- 
spondence between the prophecies of Daniel, and the 
subsequent history of Egypt and Syria, rather than 
confess that Daniel was a prophet, contradicted 
every principle of historical testimony, for the sake 



248 LECTURE VIII; 

of pretending that be must have written after the 
occurrence of what he foretold : so have some 
modern Porphyrys been driven to assert that the 
Evangelists who relate this prophecy of Jerusalem 
must have written after the city was destroyed.* I 
need not say, that the only reason pretended to in 
support of this assertion is the very thing we have 
been labouring to show, the strict agreement between 
the prophecy and the event. Their argument is 
neither more nor less than the following : If these 
words were written before the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, Jesus was a genuine prophet. But we will 
not believe him to have been a genuine prophet. 
Therefore, these words were not written before the 
destruction of Jerusalem. A conclusion as shame- 
less as it is senseless ; as opposite to the faith of 
all history as to the rules of all sound criticism, and 
the opinion of the learned of all ages. It shows the 
strength of the argument from prophecy, as well as 
the infatuated obstinacy with which the human 
heart is capable of resisting whatever would bind it 
to the obedience of Christ. 

But let us not forget that the destruction of Jeru- 
salem, with its signs and tribulations, is set in the 
Scriptures as a type of an unspeakably more awful 
and momentous event — the end of the world. 
A day cometh when ^* the sun shall be darkened, 
and the moon shall not give her light, and the 
stars shall fall from heaven, and the powers of the 
heavens shall be shaken : and then shall appear 
the sign of the Son of man in heaven; and then 
shall all the tribes of the earth mourn, and they 
shall see the Son of man coming in the clouds of 
heaven with power and great glory. And he shall 
send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, 
and they shall gather together his elect from the 

* Voltaire— Watson's Ap. for Bible, 169. 



LECTURE VIII. 249 

four winds, from one end of heaven to the other.''* 
When that day shall arise on the world, knoweth 
no man. One thing we know, that it will find us 
just as death shall find us. Death, to each of us, 
will be virtually the coming of the Son of man. 
Then our eternal state will be sealed. Therefore 
doth Wisdom utter her voice ; O ye sons of men, 
prepare to meet your God ! for in such an hour as 
ye think not, the Son of man cometh. Watch ! 
walk as children of light. Embrace the promises 
of the Gospel, and live by faith in Christ Jesus the 
Lord ! *' Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, 
when he cometh, shall find so doing." 

POSTSCRIPT. 

The following remarks on the subject of chance^ in connec- 
tion with prophecy, though in a measure anticipated in the 
quotation from Dr. Gregory, at the end of the last lecture, are 
too valuable to be omitted, and constitute a most appropriate 
supplement to all that has been said on this most interesting 
branch of the evidences of Christianity. They have been 
kindly prepared, at the request of the author, by a friend and 
parishioner, who finds no incompatibility between a supreme 
devotion of himself to the faith and service of Christ, and 
an eminent proficiency in mathematical and other human 
sciences. 

" The argument from the fulfilment of prophecy, which , 
appears so strong and conclusive in its affirmative aspect, is 
no less so when the negative mode of reasoning is adopted. 
We may waive, for example, the idea of a divine intelligence 
operating in the annunciation and fulfilment of prophecy, and 
attempt to account for the facts mentioned in some other way. 
But upon what other principle can we account for them ? 
The prophetic scl.eme is evidently too vast and multifarious 
for human agency ; and, this excluded, there remains only the 
hypothesis of chance— i\\Q negation of all intelligence, human 
and divine. The law of events, under this supposition, is the 
same as that by which probabilities are calculated in some of 
the pursuits and occupations of fife ; and an argument on this 

* Matt. xxiv. 29, 30, 31. 



^50 LECTURE VIII. 

point, therefore, resolves itself into a mere application of the 
theory of probabilities to the subjects of prophecy. If it result 
from such application, that the fulfilment was an event to be 
calculated upon with some degree of reasonableness inde- 
pendently of any intelligent supervision, then are we at liberty 
to adopt the philosophy of chance ; but otherwise we are 
bound to reject it. 

" The laws of chance, applicable to the case, may be briefly 
stated as follows : When circumstances seem to determine an 
event equally y in two different ways, the chances are said to be 
equal; and the expectation of either result is expressed, with 
evident truth, by the fraction \, But when the determining 
circumstances are unequally divided, so that any proportion, 
more or less than half of the whole number, operates in favour 
of a particular result, the chance of that result is expressed by 
the corresponding fraction. If a ball, for example, is to be 
drawn from a bag containing equal numbers of white and 
black, the probability of a white one being drawn is expressed 
numerically by \; but if there be only one fifth of the whole 
number whitey the ratio of expectation will be J, and so of 
any other proportion ; and this is the general law of simple 
probability. 

" The probability of a joint occurrence, when two mde- 
pendent events are expected, is determined by the product of 
their simple ratios ; for there must evidently be, in this case, a 
whole range of possible results, as regards one event, corre- 
sponding to each possible result of the other; and, by a parity 
of reasoning, the same truth is made evident for any number 
of events jointly considered. If balls, for example, are to be 
drawn concurrently from two or more bags, containing differ- 
ent proportions of black and white, the probability of the 
whole result being white will be found in the compound ratio 
of all those proportions : thus, if one contains \ white, another 
Uh, another Jth, and another i^i\ there will be one chance m 
800 that, in drawing one ball from each, the whole four will 
be white ; and this is the general law of compound proba- 
bility, , , I* u 

" With these premises, let us open tne book of prophecy, 
and select an example from among the various remarkable 
events there predicted. We choose one of so extraordinary a 
character as to place it among the most improbable events 
(humanly speaking) of any age or nation ; but to be quite 
sure that we do not over-estimate it, we suppose it to have an 
equal chance of general fulfilment; expressed, as we have said, 



LECTURE VIII. 251 

by the fraction J. This does not, however, include the particu- 
larities of time and place, both of which are comprehended in the 
terms of the prediction. With regard to time, we observe, 
that as there is no natural circumstance to determine the event 
spoken of to one age or period more than another, the proba- 
bility of exact fulfilment in this respect must be inversely as 
the whole number of ages in which it might have taken place. 
This, if we allow forty years for the average duration of an 
age, is about sixty; and the fraction ^th, therefore, expresses 
the contingency of time in the case supposed. With regard to 
place, the probability of exact fulfilment is evidently de- 
termined by the relation of the locality named to the whole 
world. This, in the case referred to, is not greater than that 
of one to 100,000; and the fraction y^wW) therefore, is the 
numerical factor for this element of probability. Combining 
these three ratios, we obtain an aggregate of no less than 
twelve millions of chances against the fulfilment of the as- 
sumed event at the time and place designated ; and this event 
is the personal appearance of Jesus Christ upon earth as the 
Saviour of the world. 

" Remarkably associated with this appearance in many 
ancient predictions, was the continuance of the Jewish domin- 
ion, and of the temple at Jerusalem ; the joint contingency of 
w^hich, according to the principles explained, cannot be rated 
at less than g^. A multitude of predictions are found, also, in 
various part of Scripture, relative to extraordinary particulars 
in the life, character, and death of our Saviour, as well as 
with reference to the political and social aspect of the times in 
which he appeared. Many of them are so nearly miraculous 
in their nature, or so minute and circumstantial in their details, 
as almost to preclude the idea of chance in any sense. And 
we are very sure, therefore, that we do not assume too much 
in assigning to twenty of them an average equal chance of 
non-occurrence. Proceeding upon this ground, we find the 
probability of their joint occurrence opposed by a disparity of 
more than a million of chances to one ; and it results from the 
combination of all the ratios thus found, that the advent of our 
Saviour, in all its characteristic circumstances and relations, 
could not have been calculated upon as a matter of fortuitous 
occurrence, with more than one in four thousand millions of 
millions of chances. The term probability can scarcely be 
applied with propriety to a case so very remote : but the 
argument does not stop here. 

" Our Saviour, at a time when all the calculations of human 



252 LECTURE VIII. 

forethought were diametrically opposed to him, predicted the 
general dissemination of his Gospel, and the consummation of 
prophecy with regard to the destruction of Jerusalem, in the 
short space of a single generation : and so it turned out. By 
ihe laws of probability, neither event had, at the utmost, more 
than one chance in ninety of occurring at that particular time; 
and there was, therefore, only one in 8,100 of their joint 
occurrence. 

" The predictions relative to the siege of Jerusalem, the 
subjugation of Judea, and the dispersion and subsequent con- 
dition of the Jews, present many particulars equally remark- 
able in character and fulfilment. We select twenty-four, 
which have severally a degree of probability not greater than i, 
and the result is an aggregate of nearly seventeen millions of 
chances opposed to their joint occurrence. 

" The predictions of the Old and New Testament relative 
to the state and condition of the church in various ages, and 
its influence upon the moral and political welfare of mankind, 
furnish another class of particulars which have been singularly 
verified. The individual probability of most of them would be 
much less than \ ; but we concede this, and limit ourselves to 
twelve points, the aggregate contingency of which is about ^th. 
" Finally, the prophecies of the Old Testament relative to 
the Gentile nations around Judea, and the great empires, 
Nineveh, Babylon, Tyre, Egypt, &c.., present about fifty par- 
ticulars worthy of notice in this calculation. To avoid, how- 
ever, all possibility of error, we consider only half that number, 
from which we deduce the expectation of their united fulfil- 
ment in about the ratio of one to thirty-three millions. 

" There remains still a vast number of correlative and cir- 
cumstantial details, not reducible to any of the foregoing 
heads, which are found scattered through the pages of Scrip- 
ture, and furnish a ** thick array" of corroborative evidence for 
the affirmative view of the subject ; but we need not fear to 
waive the use of them in the present calculation. The com- 
position of the ratios already determined gives an aggregate 
which it requires nearly forty places of figures to enumerate, 
and which the utmost powers of the human mind may vainly 
attempt to appreciate. If we should even assume a single 
grain of sand for the numerator of the fraction, the whole 
globe of the earth, repeated many millions of times, would 
scarcely suffice for its denominator ; and such is the extreme 
improbability of any consistent fulfilment of the scriptural 
prophecies on the principles of chance. 



LECTURE IX. 253 

" It will not be objected to this calculation, that it regards 
the different subjects of prophecy as parts of one and the 
same system ; for although they were in fact uttered by differ- 
ent prophets, and in different ages of the world, they are all 
united by a common subject ; and that with a degree of con- 
sistency and harmony scarcely less wonderful than the fulfil- 
ment itself." 



LECTURE IX. 

THE PROPAGATION OF CHRISTIANITY. 

There is a peculiarity in the argument for the di- 
vine authority of Christianity, which we cannot but 
notice in the commencement of this lecture. While 
the several parts unite with the utmost harmony and 
prodigious strength in the construction of one grand 
system of evidence ; each is a perfect argument in 
itself, and capable of furnishing, had we nothing 
else on which to depend, an ample support for the 
whole fabric of Christianity. We speak of the se- 
veral parts composing that general division to which 
these lectures are restricted — tke external evidence 
—such as the miracles, the prophecies, and that 
on which we are now about to enter, the propagation 
of Christianity, The two former have been dis- 
cussed. We praise the subject, not the lecturer, in 
saying, that we have not only established on solid 
ground the genuineness of the miracles of the Gos- 
pel, and the prophetic attestation to the divine 
mission of our Lord ; but that, in having done thus, 
we have twice Jinished the proof of Christianity, as 
a divine revelation. It was complete, when we had 
shown that Jesus and his apostles were attended by 
the credentials of genuine miracles. It was com- 
menced again and completed a second time, and 
by a course of argument entirely different, when we 
had shown that Jesus was a prophet, as well as the 



254 LECTURE IX. 

fiCreat subject of prophecy. We are now to begin 
anew, hoping to prove a third time, and by a course 
of evidence entirely different from either of the pre- 
ceding, that the Gospel of Christ is none other than 
'' the glorious Gospel of the blessed God. Uur 
argument will be drawn from the rapid propagation 
of the Gospel, in contrast with the difficulties it had 

to overcome. . « 

It was only forty days after the resurrection ot 
Christ, that he delivered to his little band of apos- 
tles the parting charge : *' Go into all the world, 
and preach the Gospel to every creature. [' Go, 
teach (or disciple) all nations, baptizing them in the 
name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the 
Holy Ghostr In other words ; Go, carry the war 
of the truth into the midst of its enemies ; think 
not your work completed till you have planted the 
cross upon the high places of the heathen, and have 
gathered together my elect '' from the four winds 
from one end of heaven to the other/ Such 
was the work entrusted to those few unlearned, 
despised disciples, who formed almost the whole 
strength of the christian church in the day when 
their beloved Master was received out of their sight, 
and ascended into heaven. Now, let us consider, in 
the first division of this lecture, 

I. The difficulties they had to surmount in 
executing this comraand. Be it remarked. 

1st. In the first place, that the idea of propa- 
gating a new religion, to the exclusion ot every 
other, was at that time a perfect novelty to all man- 
kind, with the exception of, perhaps, a few indivi- 
duals of the Jews, specially enlightened in the pro- 
phetic declarations of the Old Testament Scriptures. 
The Jewish religion was, indeed, sufficiently exclu- 
sive ; but in its external organization it was neither 
designed nor adapted for extensive promulgation. 
Nothino; could have been more perfectly foreign to 



LECTURE IX. 255 

all the reigning opinions, prejudices, and disposi- 
tions of that insulated nation, in the days of the 
apostles, than the thought of attempting to convert 
even a single city of the Gentiles to their unsocial 
system of religion. Their zeal was indeed extremely 
energetic in behalf of whatever involved the secu- 
rity and honour of their faith ; but, in regard to 
other nations, it was the zeal of jealousy to keep 
them at a great distance, rather than of invitation 
to bring them to a participation in their superior 
privileges. 

The charge of the Saviour to his apostles was, if 
possible, still more novel to the Gentiles than the 
Jews. Heathenism had never been propagated from 
place to place. In its innumerable forms, it had 
grown up out of the depraved dispositions of human 
nature, all over the world ; as thorns and thistles, 
though never sown by the husbandman, are found 
every where on the face of the earth. Without a 
creed, it w^as without principle; and therefore had 
nothing to contend for but the privilege of as- 
suming any form, worshipping any idol, practising 
any ritual, and pursuing any absurdity, which the 
craft of the priesthood, or the superstitions and 
vices of the people, mi^ht select. It never was ima- 
gined by any description of pagans, that all other 
forms of religion were not as good, for the people ob- 
serving them, as their 's was for them ; or that any 
dictate of kindness or common sense should lead 
them to attempt the subversion of the gods of their 
neighbours, for the sake of establishing their own 
in their stead. So that nothing could have been 
more perfectly new, surprising, offensive to the whole 
Gentile world, than the duty laid upon the first 
advocates of Christianity, to go into all nations, 
asserting the exclusive claims of the Gospel, de- 
nouncing the validity of all other religions, and 
labouring to bring over every creature to the single 



256 LECTURE IX. 

faith of Christ. Had Christianity been content to 
stand, without urging its right to stand alone, the 
heathen nations might have allowed it as much tole- 
ration as they were accustomed to yield to the 
various systems of idolatry among themselves. An 
altar would, perhaps, have been vouchsafed, m 
many an idol temple, to the christian's God ; and an 
image, in honour of Christ, might have been per- 
mitted a place among the divinities of the Pantheon. 
But its character being rigidly exclusive, and yet its 
spirit universally benevolent, the apostles must have 
seen at once that they were charged with a work 
not only perfectly new, but which would necessarily 
bring them into conflict with all the institutions, 
passfons, customs, prejudices, and powers, of all 
nations of the world.* 

2d. But the difficulties to be surmounted by the 
apostles were not confined to the novelty of their 
enterprise, and the exclusiveness of their faith. In 
the whole character of the Gospel, as a system of 
religious doctrine, and a rule of heart and life, there 
was a barrier in the way of its progress, which, to 
human wisdom and power, would have rendered 
their cause perfectly desperate. To propagate any 
religion at the expense of every other, would have 
been to them, in their own strength, destitute as 
they were of all earthly auxiliaries, a hopeless 
task ; but to propagate the religion of the Gospel, 
was unspeakably more difficult. A system of doc- 
trine partaking, in the least degree, of any of its 
characteristic qualities, was a thing entirely un- 
imagined among the heathen, and scarcely thought 
of, by one in ten thousand of the degenerate poste- 

* A religion, under which all men could unite with one 
another, appeared to the ancients an impossibility. " A man 
must be very weak (said Celsus) to imagine that Greeks and 
barbarians,'in Asia, Europe, and Libya, can ever unite under 
the same system of religion." 



LECTURE IX. 257 

rity of Abraham. Religion, among the Gentiles, 
was a creature of the state ; it consisted exclu- 
sively in the outward circumstance of temples, and 
altars, and images, and priests, and sacrifices, and 
festivals, and lustrations. It multiplied its objects 
of worship at the pleasure of the civil authorities ; 
taught no system of doctrine, recognized no system 
of morality, required nothing of the heart, com- 
mitted the life of man to unlimited discretion, and 
allowed any one to stand perfectly well with the 
gods, on the trifling condition of a little show of 
respect for their worship, to whatever extent he in- 
dulged in the worst passions and lowest propensities 
of his nature. Heathen religion, in all its forms, 
was the most perfect contrast to every thing spiri- 
tual, holy, humbling, self-denying. Nothing could 
have been more foreign to every habit of thought, 
in the mind of a native of Greece or Rome, than 
the Scripture doctrine of the nature and guilt of sin, 
of repentance, conversion, faith, love, meekness, 
and purity of heart. Their languages had scarcely 
expressions sufficiently approximated to these sub- 
jects, to admit of their explanation without the coin- 
age of new words for the purpose. And in many 
respects the whole race of the Jews, degenerate as 
they were in the time of the apostles, were as little 
prepared for a spiritual, heart-searching religion, as 
any people of the Gentiles. 

Then imagine the incipient effort of the disciples 
of Christ, to gain over the nations to the obedience 
of the Gospel. What could they say to them by 
way of conciliation, of all their systems of religion 
and habits of living, to which, from time immemo- 
rial, they had been accustomed ? Nothing but un- 
qualified, uncompromising reprobation. What could 
they offer as a substitute, and with what recommen- 
dations could they p«)po3e it ? The unity of God, 
to the extermination of all idolatry; the fall of 

s 



258 LECTURE IX. 

man, and his entire ruin and condemnation by sin, 
to the utter subversion of all their proud conceit of 
their own merit, and of the dignity of their degraded 
nature ; the necessity of a new heart, including 
repentance, and holiness, and humility, and the 
diligent pursuit of all godliness of living, to the 
complete breaking up of all their philosophy ; the 
mortification of all their pride, and the ditect pro- 
hibition of all those unbridled passions, and odious 
vices, which then held such universal dominion in 
the world. It was no aid to the work of *the 
apostles, that, besides these unwelcome truths and 
requisitions, the Gospel stipulated for a habit of 
secret prayer, a life of faith; a heart animated with 
patience, gentleness, forgiveness, and benevolence, 
to all mankind ; and, above all, a single reliance for 
peace with God, upon the death and intercession of 
One who had been crucified as a malefactor, de- 
spised and rejected even by the despised nation of 
the Jews. 

It is easy to perceive, from this brief sketch of 
some of the peculiarities of the Gospel, in contrast 
with all that was loved, and practised, and gloried 
in by the nations of the earth, that while a new 
religion, willing to make terms with the habits and 
corruptions of men, might, if aided by the fascina- 
tions of eloquence, the enticements of worldly in- 
terest, and the arm of secular power, have gained 
some advancement ; Christianity, with its uncom- 
promising spirit ; its holy requirements, and its 
twelve unlettered and despised apostles for its 
whole earthly strength, must have perished in its 
infancy, had not the '* Mighty Ruler of the universe" 
been its friend. 

3d. From what has been said, it is manifest, that 
the enterprise of the apostles must have arrayed 
against it all the influence of every priesthood, both 
among Jews and heathens. In the beginning of 



LECTURE IX. 259 

Christianity the priests of the Jews were not only 
very numerous and degenerate, but exceedingly 
influential in their nation. They were, in reality, 
the nobility of Judea. The power of the magis- 
tracy was, in a great measure, in their hands. The 
people were educated under their charge. They 
held the reins of public opinion, and headed all the 
great public movements of the community. What 
tremendous resistance they were capable of making 
to the advancement of Christianity ; how bitterly 
they replied to those claims which pronounced the 
dissolution of their priesthood, and the termination 
of their authority ; and with what deadly concert 
they persecuted its blessed Author, thinking they 
had put also his Gospel, when they had put his 
person, to the cross, I need not remind you. 

We turn to the priests of the Gentiles. The 
enterprise of the apostles was directly at war with 
their dignities, their influence, and their gains. 
What resistance they were capable of making, is 
obvious, from a consideration of the extensive estab- 
lishment, the high official dignity, the wealth, the 
political influence, and the superstitious veneration, 
attached, in the first years of Christianity, to a hea- 
then priesthood. '* The religion of the nations," 
says Gibbon, '* was not merely a speculative doc- 
trine, professed in the schools, or preached in the 
temples. The innumerable deities and rites of 
polytheism, were closely interwoven with every cir- 
cumstance of business or pleasure, of public or of 
private life ; and it seemed impossible to escape the 
observance of them without, at the same time, re- 
nouncing the commerce of mankind. The import- 
ant transactions of peace and w^ar were prepared or 
concluded by solemn sacrifices, in which the magis- 
trate, the senator, and the soldier, were obliged 
to participate." The Roman senate was always 
held in a temple, or consecrated place. Before 



260 LECTURE IX. 

commencing business, every senator performed an 
act of homage to the gods of the nation. The 
several colleges of the sacerdotal order, in the single 
city of Rome— the fifteen Pontiffs ; the fifteen Au- 
gurs ; the fifteen keepers of the Sybilline books; 
the six Vestals ; the seven Epuli ; the Flamens ; 
the confraternities of the Salians and Lupercalians ; 
&c., furnish an idea of the strong establishment 
of the priesthood, in an empire that embraced the 
known world. The dignity of their sacred charac- 
ter was protected, as well by the laws as by the man- 
ners of the country. " Their robes of purple, 
chariots of state, and sumptuous entertainments, 
attracted the admiration of the people ; and they 
received from the consecrated lands and public 
revenue, an ample stipend, which liberally supported 
the splendour of the priesthood, and all the expenses 
of the religious worship of the state." The great 
men of Rome, after their consulships and military 
triumphs, aspired to the place of pontiff or of augur. 
Cicero confesses that the latter was the supreme 
object of his wishes. Pliny was animated with a 
similar ambition. Tacitus, the historian, after his 
prsetorship, was a member of the sacerdotal order. 
The fifteen priests, composing the college of pontiffs, 
were distinguished as the companions of their sove- 
reign. And, as an evidence of what accommoda- 
tions paganism must have had in Rome in the days 
of her glory ; the number of its temples and cha- 
pels, remaining in the three hundred and eightieth 
year after the birth of Christ, when, for more than 
three centuries, Christianity had been thinning the 
ranks of its votaries, and for sixty years had been 
the established religion of the empire, was/owr hun- 
dred and tiventy-four.'' In connexion with all this 
organization and deep-rooted power of heathenism, 
consider its various tribes of subordinate agents, and 

* Gibbon, vol. iv. c. xxviii. 



LECTURE rx. 261 

interested allies ; the diviners, augurs, and managers 
of oracles, with all the attendants and assistants 
belonging to the temples of a countless variety of 
idols ; the trades, whose craft was sustained by the 
patronage of image-w^orship, such as statuaries, 
shrine-mongers, sacrifice-sellers, incense-merchants, 
consider the great festivals and games by which hea- 
thenism flattered the dispositions of the people, and 
enlisted all classes, and all countries, in its sup- 
port — the Circensian, and other grand exhibitions, 
among the Romans ; the Pythian, Nemean, Isth- 
mian, and Olympic games, celebrated with great 
pomp and splendour in almost every Grecian city of 
Europe and Asia — the pride of the people, the 
delight of all the lovers of pleasure or of fame, 
intimately associated with, and specially patronized 
by, the religion of idols ; and, therefore, directly 
attacked by all the efforts of Christianity. Then 
say, what must have been the immense force in 
which the several priesthoods of all heathen nations 
were capable of uniting among themselves, and with 
the priests of the Jews, in the common cause of 
crushing a religion, by whose doctrines none of them 
could be tolerated. That with all their various con- 
tingents, they did unite, consenting in this one 
object, if in little else, of smothering Christianity in 
her cradle, or of drowning her in the blood of her 
disciples— all history assures us. How she survived 
their efforts ; how the fishermen of Galilee could 
have overcome their whole array — without the ' help 
of God, is a problem which infidelity only shows its 
own weakness by attempting to solve. 

4th. But the authority of the magistrate was 
united with the influence of heathen and Jewish 
priesthoods in zealous hostility to the Gospel. In 
all countries, the support of the religion of the state 
was the duty of the magistrate. Toleration, among 
the most civilized heathens, much as it has been 



262 LECTURE IX. 

eulogized by infidels, allowed of no religion that 
would not permit entire communion, on the part of 
its followers, in the worship appointed by the state. 
On this condition, it countenanced the utmost lati- 
tude of belief and practice.* But to refuse con- 
formity with the national rites, and worship to the 
national gods, was an offence unpardonable, not 
only to the gods, but to the civil authority. This it 
was that excited so much wonder among the Gentiles, 
and nerved the secular arm with such deadly offence 
against the disciples of Christ. '' Keep yourselves 
from idols," was a precept that met the pagan Greek 
and Roman, whenever he beheld a Christian. *'What 
can be the reason, (said a Roman prefect to an 
Alexandrian bishop,) why you may not still adore 
that God of yours, supposing him to be a God, in 
conjunction with our gods?" " We worship no other 
God^,*' was the Christian's answer;! a declaration 
which, from the sword of a heathen magistrate, 
could have no forbearance, and, being every where 
received as a characteristic principle of the Gospel, 
called out the whole power of the civil governments 
of the Gentiles to unite with their priesthoods in its 
destruction. 

5th. To these associated powers were added the 
prejudices and passions of all the people. These, 
among the Gentiles, were powerful ; not only m 
favour of their own idolatries, but especially in aver- 
sion to a religion originating among Jews ; still 
more to a religion advocated by Jews, who were 
despised and persecuted by their own despised 

* *' The Athenian notion of toleration is well described 
by Socrates, and much resembles the opinion on that subject 
that many entertain, even in our own times. ' It appears to 
me, (says Socrates,) that the Atiienians do not greatly care 
what sentiments a man holds, provided he keeps tkem to 
himself; hut if he attempts to instruct others, then they are 
indignant."' — Douf^las on Errors, ^c, 212. 

+ Euseb. Hist. Eccl. vii. c. xi. 



LECTURE IX. 263 

countrymen ; and yet a great deal more to a reli- 
gion so spiritual and holy, so utterly at war with 
vice and idolatry, as that of the Gospel. 

See, in the Epistle to the Romans, a picture from 
the pencil of a master, of the fierce passions, the 
vicious debasements, which universally characterized 
the gentile nations in the days of St. Paul. ''Filled 
with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, 
covetousness, maliciousness ; full of envy, murder, 
debate, deceit, malignity ; whisperers, backbiters, 
haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors 
of evil things, disobedient to parents, without under- 
standing, covenant-breakers, without natural affec- 
tion, implacable, unmerciful : who, knowing the 
judgment of God, that they which commit such 
things are worthy of death, not only do the same, 
but have pleasure in them that do them."* This 
description is borne out, to the letter, by the testi- 
monies of heathen writers. Paul has furnished a 
picture of the morals of his own nation, correspond- 
ing with it in all essential features. What, then, 
eould the Gospel, with all its holy duties and spi- 
ritual doctrines, encounter in such a world, but a 
most violent opposition from the whole mass of the 
people ? 

6th. But the wisdom and pride of the heathen 
philosophers were by no means the least formidable 
enemies with which the Gospel had to contend. 
Their sects, though numerous and exceedingly va- 
rious, were all agreed in proudly trusting in them- 
selves that they were wise, and despising others. 
Their published opinions; their private specula- 
tions ; their personal immorality — made them irre- 
concileable adversaries of Christianity. It went up 
into their schools, and called their wisdom foolish- 
ness, and rebuked their self-conceit. It '' came not 
with excellency of speech," or " the enticing words 

» Rom. i. 29—82, 



264 LECTURE IX. 

of man's wisdom,'* ** doting (as they did) about 
questions and strifes of words ;" but knowing no- 
thing among men, save Jesus Christ and him cruci- 
jftedj it just bade them repent, be converted, become 
as little children, and believe in a crucified Saviour^ 
for peace with God. This was, indeed, ** to the 
Greek foolishness.'* " What will this babbler say?'* 
** He seemeth to be a setter forth of strange gods," 
were the taunting words of certain of the Epicu- 
reans and Stoics when they encountered St. Paul, 
Mockery was the natural expression of their minds, 
** when they heard of the resurrection of the dead."* 
The apostles, therefore^ in attempting to propagate 
the Gospel among the Gentiles, were opposed by 
all the wit, and learning, and sophistry — all the 
pride, and jealousy, and malice — of every sect of 
philosophers. And how formidable was this hos- 
tility, is obvious, from the great credit, superior 
even to that of the priests, among the higher classes 
of society, whi Ji those sects had obtained. " Who- 
ever pretended to learning or virtue was their dis- 
ciple ; the greatest magistrates, generals, kings, 
ranged themselres under their discipline, were 
trained up in their schools, and professed the opi- 
nions they taught.'*t 

7th. In connection with these powerful adversa- 
ries, consider the character of the age in which the 
apostles undertook the propagation of Christianity. 
It was distinguished as one of profound peace among 
the nations, when the minds of men were peculiarly 
capable of deliberately investigating the claims of 
the Gospel ; it was the Augustan age, when philo- 
sophy thronged the cities with her disciples, and 
every description of polite literature was in the 
highest cultivation. Its peculiar feature was directly 
the reverse of credulity. No age of the world, 
before or since, was so extensively characterized by 
* Acts xvii. 1 8^32. t Lyttleton's Conversion of St. Paul. 



LECTURE IX. 265 

scepticism. While the great mass of the plebeians 
were superstitiously given to idolatry, the patricians 
were no less corrupted with opinions which went 
to the denial of all religion. Among the various 
schools which then divided the learned of the Roman 
empire, those which declared openly against the 
most fundamental truths of religion, were much the 
most numerous. Of this description were the 
Epicureans^ and Academics ; the former maintain- 
ing that the soul was mortal^ and that, if gods 
there were, they took no care of human affairs ; 
the latter, that to arrive at truth was impossible ; 
that, ** whether the gods existed or not, whether 
the soul was mortal or immortal, virtue preferable 
to vice or vice to virtue,^' could not be ascertained. 
These two sects, the one atheist, the other too scep- 
tical even to believe in atheism, were the most 
numerous of all in the age of the apostles, and 
were particularly encouraged by the liberality of 
the rich, and the protection of the powerful. f 
From this prevalence of philosophy ** falsely so 
called," the age was distinguished for curious and 
bold inquiry ; the learned every where, like those 
of Athens, spending their time in little else but 
either to tell or to hear some new thing.X It 
was, also, for the same reason, an age of special 
contempt for whatever claimed to be received as 
supernatural. While every city, through the influ- 
ence of the priests and magistrates, was wholly given 
to idolatry, so far as the multitude and the external 
aspect of all classes were concerned ; yet, in the 
inner schools of philosophy, and the private opinions 
of the educated, it was almost entirely pervaded with 
scepticism. Add to this, its necessary companion, 

* Cicero complains that of all sects of philosophers, this 
made the most remarkable progress, and gained the most 
adherents. — De Finibus, 

t Mosheim's Hist., part I. § xxi. t Acts xvii. 



566 LECTURE IX. 

the universal prevalence of unprecedented luxury, 
and dissoluteness of living ; and you will have a 
true outline of the character of the age in which the 
apostles, by " the foolishness of preaching,'' know- 
ing ^' nothing among men, save Jesus Christ and 
him crucified," were to ** destroy the wisdom of the 
wise," and convert whole nations to Christianity. 

Most evidently, then , was the age peculiarly and en- 
tirely unpropitious. Nothing, on human calculation, 
could have been more certain of utter rejection 
and contempt, at such a time, than the simplicity, 
spirituality, and holiness of the Gospel ; especially 
its two cardinal points, humble repentance, and sub- 
missive faith, 

8th. Consider, next, to whom the propagation of 
the Gospel was committed. Who were they that re- 
ceived the commission, ** Go preach the Gospel to 
every creature,'' and *' make disciples of all nations?" 
men, adapted to such a mighty work in no single 
qualification, except to show, in their weakness, that 
their success was altogether of God ! They were 
neither philosophers, nor orators, nor educated men. 
They were from a class of mankind denominated by 
the ruling nations, barbarians ; they were of that 
nation among the barbarians, whom all the rest of 
the world particularly despised ; they were of that 
portion of the nation, which was least esteemed by 
its own members. They were poor, without the 
least worldly consideration or influence. They were 
acquainted with no craft but that of publicans and 
fishermen. They had never learned any language 
but that of Galilee, and yet they were to preach to 
people of all languages. Such were the men whose 
work it was to assault the high and fenced walls of 
Judaism ; to break the power of heathenism, though 
entrenched in the vices of the people ; upheld by 
the craft of their priesthoods ; defended by the 
power of all nations ; and sanctioned by the tradi- 



LECTURE IX. 267 

tions of immemorial ages. Such were the men who 
were to go into the proud schools of philosophy ; 
show their wisdom to be foolishness ; teach their 
teachers; bring out captives to the humble faith 
of the crucified Nazarene ; and baptize them in the 
name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy 
Ghost. 

9th. Consider the circumstances of depression and 
discouragement in which they commenced this work. 
The enemies of their Master had just succeeded in 
putting him to the shame of the cross, under accu- 
sation of capital guilt. Their taunting language to 
the agonizing victim, " Come down from the cross, 
if thou be the Son of God^^' shows what a death- 
blow they supposed themselves to have given to his 
cause. All his disciples had forsaken him, and fled. 
The stone upon the mouth of his sepulchre was not 
heavier than the weight upon their hearts, when they 
beheld him dead and buried. After a few days, they 
assembled together again in Jerusalem, when an 
upper room contained the whole congregation of 
those that believed in Christ. Their cause was 
universally supposed to have died with its Master. 
The fact that he had not been saved by the power 
of God from the disgrace of crucifixion, was re- 
garded every where as a perfect answer to all his 
claims. Such was the beginning of the propagation 
of the Gospel. These were the desperate circum- 
stances in which the unfriended, unprotected, ridi- 
culed apostles were to set up their banner. What 
could they do ? 

10th. Consider the mode they adopted. They 
sought no favour from worldly influence ; courted no 
human indulgence ; waited for no earthly appro- 
bation ; paid as little deference to rank, or wealth, 
or human learning, as to poverty and meanness. 
They spake as men having authority ; as ambas- 
sadors, commissioned from a throne, and sustained 



2G8 LECTURE IX. 

by a power before which, they had a right to demand 
tliat priests, and philosophers, and kings, should sub- 
mit. " Not with enticing words of man's wisdom,'' 
did they seek to advance their cause ; but in simple 
reliance upon ** the demonstration of the Spirit." 
Instead of selecting such doctrines as would best 
conciliate their hearers, and concealing the rest ; 
they fixed their preaching most emphatically on 
what they knew was their special subject of derision 
and mockery, both to Jew and Greek ; glorying in 
nothing y save in the cross of Christ, Instead of 
seeking retired and ignorant people as the subject of 
their efforts ; instead of a double doctrine, as the 
philosophers had — (one thing for the world, another 
for their disciples ; a part for the novice, the whole 
only for the initiated) — they kept back nothing, any 
where ; declaring boldly the whole Gospel in the 
most public places, and before the greatest enemies. 
** Jesus and the resurrection," were preached as freely 
to Epicureans and Stoics in Athens, as to publicans 
and sinners in Jerusalem. Instead of accommodating 
their declarations in any degree to the vainglorious 
and vicious characters of those whom they addressed ; 
they declared the wrath of God to be '* revealed from 
heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness 
of men." To every soul that would be a christian, 
they issued the requirement, " depart from iniquity," 
** crucify the flesh, with its affections and lusts," and 
be willing to be esteemed a fool, and persecuted to 
death, for Christ's sake. Such was the mode selected 
by these powerless Galileans, by which to subdue the 
fierce opposition of the proud self-righteous Jews, 
and to make christians out of Greeks and Romans, 
alike devoted to degrading vices, and puffed up with 
the conceit of superior v/isdom. 

11th. Now let us see in what manner the at- 
tempt to propagate Christianity was received. It 
was met every where by the most strenuous hosti- 



LECTURE IX. 269 

lity, and the fiercest persecution. From the first 
discourse of the apostles, down to the three hundred 
and fifth year of the christian era, persecution never 
entirely ceased, while its more public and general 
onsets followed one another in such close succes- 
sion, that the church had hardly time to bury her 
dead before she was called to prepare more candi- 
dates, by thousands at a time, for the tortures and 
triumphs of martyrdom. The preaching of the 
apostles began at Jerusalem, and there also perse- 
cution began. Saul hunted christians with the ap- 
petite of a bloodhound. Stephen was the first vic- 
tim. Soon the brethren were scattered far and wide 
by the fury of the storm. James was slain with 
the sword ; Peter, imprisoned for execution ; Paul, 
scourged and stoned, and pursued so continually, 
that, in every city, bonds and afflictions awaited 
him. Whatever Jewish hate, goaded on by a jea- 
lous priesthood, could do, was put in requisition to 
crush the cause. All the devices that Roman go- 
vernors, seconded by the superstitions and passions 
of the several nations of heathenism, could employ, 
were united in the one business of driving back the 
advancing cause of Christ. His disciples were ca- 
lumniated as atheists ; enemies of man ; murderers 
and devourers of their own children ; and as guilty 
of the most loathsome and horrible practices.* In- 
struments of torture were exhausted. Jews and 
Gentiles, soldiers, slaves, governors, and emperors, 
racked their ingenuity to find out new ways of tempt- 
ing christians to unfaithfulness, and, when they were 
stedfast, of increasing their agonies without hasten- 
ing their death. Every province, and city, and vil- 

* " ^ The Atheists,' was the universal name for christians. 
To the charge of dire hostility to all religion, was added 
that of combined rebellion against all law and all mankind. 
* Irreligiosi in Ccssares, (wstes Ccesariim, hastes popuU Ro- 
mani/ was their universal character, among their enemies." 



270 LECTURE IX. 

lage was a scene of martyrdom. The great princi- 
ple of the ruling powers was, that this '' superstition," 
as they called it, ^' must, at all hazards, be put down/' 
** In a short time, the punishments of death were so 
common, that, as related by the writers of those 
times, no famine, pestilence, or war, ever consumed 
more men at a time." The edict of Trajan, com- 
manding the presidents to inflict capital punish- 
ment on all who would not renounce Christianity, 
was never abrogated while heathenism reigned in 
Rome.* Whatever persecution was in the heart of the 
empire, it was also in Africa, Persia, Arabia, Cappa- 
docia, Mesopotamia, Nicomedia, Phrygia, and in 
almost every place where the christian name was 
known. ^' Those who suffered for the cause of 
Christ, men, women, youths of both sexes, were so 
numerous as to be estimated only in the mass. In 
torments they stood stronger than their tormentors ; 
their bruised and mangled limbs proving too hard 
for the instruments with which their fl.esh was 
racked and pulled from them ; the blows, however 
often repeated, could not conquer their impregnable 
faith ; even though they not only sliced and tore off 
the flesh, but raked into their very bowels." Such 
is the description given by one of those who thus 
endured unto the end.f The strong language in the 
Epistle to the Hebrews is eminently applicable: 
Some '* were tortured, not accepting deliverance ; 
others had trial of cruel mockings and scourgings, 
yea, moreover, of bonds and imprisonment ; they 
were stoned, they were sawn asunder, were tempted, 
were slain with the sword ; they -wandered about 
in sheep-skins and goat-skins, being destitute, 
aiBicted, tormented: they wandered in deserts, and 
in mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth. "J 
Christians were often the victims of popular fury, 
as well as of public edicts and imperial authority. 
* Lardner, iv. 300. t Cyprian. t Heb. xi. 35—38. 



LECTURE IX. 271 

Every odious slander was propagated against them 
for the purpose of instigating the rage of the popu- 
lace. The evidence of abject slaves, or of persons 
forced by torture to testify as an incensed commu- 
nity desired, was used to justify, the most dreadful 
explosions of vulgar hate. Did a drought occur ? 
It was a proverbial explanation, that " if God re- 
fused rain, the christians were in fault." Did the 
Nile refuse its annual irrigation, or the Tiber over- 
flow its banks ? Did earthquake, or famine, or any 
other public calamity, excite the popular mind ? A 
ready cause was in every mouth ; the anger of the 
gods on account of the increase of Christianity ! 
A ready sacrifice to propitiate the offended deities 
was immediately resorted to — the slaughter of the 
Christians ! How the better-informed of society 
endeavoured to stimulate the mob to these heca- 
tombs of innocent victims, may be judged from the 
fact, that *' Porphyry, a man who wished to be ac- 
counted a philosopher, found a cause for the inve- 
teracy of an infectious and desolating sickness in 
this, — that Esculapius could not exert any effectual 
influence on the earth, in consequence of the preva- 
lence of Christianity.''* 

Such, then, were the obstacles which opposed the 
propagation of the Gospel. Who, in their antici- 
pation, must not have said, ^' If this cause be of 
man, it must come to naught?" Either it must die 
a natural death in the obscurity of its birth, or be 
torn to pieces at the first onset of its foes, or else 
it must be of God — protected and advanced by His 
power. 

Before proceeding to speak of the success of the 
apostles, we may deduce, from the premises we have 
established, a conclusive proof of the power by 
which they acted. 

* Neander']^ Ch. History. 



272 LECTURE IX. 

// is certain that they understood the difficulties, 
and anticipated the dangers, of their ivork. As 
men of ordinary understanding, they must have 
foreseen, while, by the predictions of Christ, they 
were distinctly apprised of, the obstacles and perils 
they would encounter. Nevertheless, with a perfect 
knowledge of their own weakness, they undertook 
to propagate the Gospel among all nations. Why ? 
What was there in reproach and beggary, in racks 
and prisons, in wild beasts and flames, so inviting < 
Must they not have been sincere m their profes- 
sions ? Could any thing short of a thorough behef 
that Jesus was risen, and had promised to be with 
them in all their labours, have induced them to 
undertake such an enterprise ? It is impossible, 
without ridiculous absurdity, to question their entire 
persuasion of this. But is this a proof that Jesus 
was risen, and that, in divine power, he was with 
them? We do not pretend that, in general, the 
fact of the advocates of a doctrine bemg convinced 
is valid evidence, of its truth. But in the case ot 
the apostles it should be thus regarded, inasmuch as 
they could not have been deceived. Whether Jesus 
wrought genuine miracles or not; whether he had 
appeared to them " at sundry times and m divers 
manners" after his burial; whether he had eaten 
with them, conversed with them, journeyed with 
them, durins: the space of forty days subsequent to 
his death ; whether they heard and saw him, at the 
end of those days, solemnly give them their charge 
to propagate the Gospel, and the promise ot his 
presence and power wherever they should go ; they 
must have knoiun. Consequently, when with such 
undeniable knowledge and unquestionable sincerity, 
they went into all the world preaching Jesus and 
the resurrection, neither deceived nor wishing to 
deceive, the evidence was perfect, that they laboured 
in the service of truth ; that their faith stood 



LECTURE IX. 273 

not ^^ in the wisdom of men^ hut in the power of 
God,'* 

II. Xet us now consider the success o? the 

APOSTLES IN EXECUTING THEIR MaSTER's CHARGE. 

On the fiftieth day after his death, they commenced. 
Beginning in Jerusalem, the very furnace of perse- 
cution, they first set up their banner in the midst of 
those who had been first in the crucifixion of Jesus, 
and were all elate with the triumph of that tragedy. 
No assemblage could have been more possessed of 
dispositions perfectly at war with their message, than 
that to which they made their first address. And 
what was the tenor of the address ? " Jesus of 
Nazareth, (said Peter,) being delivered by the deter- 
minate counsel and foreknowledge of God, ye have 
taken, and by wicked hands have crucified and 
slain ; whom God hath raised up. Therefore let all 
the house of Israel know assuredly, that God hath 
m^.de that same Jesus, whom ye have crucified, both 
Lord and Christ.'' One would have supposed that 
the same hands that had rioted in the blood of his 
Master, would now have wreaked their enmity in 
that of this daring, and, to all human view, most 
impolitic apostle. But what ensued ? Three thou- 
sand souls were that day added to the infant church.* 
In a few days the number was increased to fve 
thousand ;f and in the space of about a year and a 
half, though the Gospel was preached only in Jeru- 
salem and its vicinity, " multitudes, both of men 
and women,'' and " a great company of the priests, 
were obedient to the faith:'X Now, the converts 
being driven, by a fierce persecution, from Jerusa- 
lem, *' went every where preaching the word ;" and 
in less than three years, churches were gathered 
" throughout all Judea, Galilee, and Samaria, and 
were multiplied."§ About two years after this, or 

* Acts ii. 41. + Acts iv; 4. t Acts v. 14. vi. 7, 

§ Acts viii. 4. ix. 13. 
T 



274 LECTURE IX. 

seven from the beginning of tlie sacred work, the Gos- 
pel was first preached to the Gentiles ; and such was 
the success, that before thirty years had elapsed 
from the death of Christ, his church had spread 
throughout Judea, Galilee, and Samaria; through 
almost all the numerous districts of the lesser Asia ; 
through Greece and the islands of the iEgean sea, 
the sea-coast of Africa, and even into Italy and 
Rome. The number of converts in the several 
cities, respectively, is described by the expressions, 
''a great number,"' "great multitudes,'' ''much 
people:' What an extensive impression had been 
made, is obvious from the outcry of the opposers at 
Thessalonica, " that they, who had turned the world 
upside down, were come hither also." Demetrius, 
an enemy, complained of Paul, that, ** not only at 
Ephesus, but also throughout all Asia, he had per- 
suaded and turned away much people^'' In the 
meanwhile, Jerusalem, the chief seat of Jewish ran- 
cour, continued the metropolis of the Gospel, having 
in it many tens of thousands of believers,^ These 
accounts are taken from the book of the Acts of the 
Apostles ; but as this book is almost confined to 
the labours of Paul and his immediate companions, 
saying very little of the other apostles, it is very 
certain that the view we have given of the propa- 
gation of the Gospel, during the first thirty years, 
is very incomplete. In the thirtieth year after the 
beo-inning of the good work, the terrible persecution 
under Nero kindled its fires ; then christians had 
become so numerous at Rome, that by the testimony 
of Tacitus, '' a great multitude' were seized. In 
forty years more, as we are told in a celebrated letter 
from Pliny, the Roman governor of Pontus and 
Bithynia, Christianity had long subsisted in these 
provinces, though so remote from Judea, '' Many 
of all ages, and of every rank, of both sexes like- 
* See Paley's Evidences, f Acts xxi. 20. " Tloaai ^ivpiadeg: 



LECTURE IX. 275 

wise," were accused to Pliny of being Christians. 
What he calls *^ the contagion of this superstition'* 
(thus forcibly describing the irresistible and rapid 
spread of Christianity,) had *' seized not cities only, 
but the less towns also, and the open country," so 
that the heathen temples were almost forsaken," 
few victims were purchased for sacrifice, and " a 
long intermission of the sacred solemnities had taken 
place."* Justin Martyr, who wrote about thirty 
years after Pliny, and one hundred after the Gospel 
was first preached to the Gentiles, thus describes 
the extent of Christianity in his time : " There is not 
a nation, either Greek or barbarian, or of any other 
name, even of those who wander in tribes and live 
in tents, among whom prayers and thanksgivings are 
not offered to the Father and Creator of the uni- 
verse, by the name of the crucified Jesus." Cle- 
mens Alexandrinus, a few^ years after, thus writes : 
*' The philosophers were confined to Greece, and to 
their particular retainers ; but the doctrine of the 
Master of Christianity did not^ remain in Judea, but 
is spread throughout the whole world, in every 
nation, and village, and city, converting both whole 
houses and separate individuals, having already 
brought over to the truth not a few of the philoso- 
[)hers themselves. If the Greek philosophy be pro- 
hibited, it immediately vanishes ; whereas, from the 
first preaching of our doctrine, kings and tyrants, 
governors and presidents, with their whole train, and 
with the populace, on their side, have endeavoured, 
with their whole might, to exterminate it, yet doth it 
flourish more and more." 

There is no reason for diminishing the wonder 
which this rapid success of the Gospel so necessarily 
excites, by the supposition that all these conversions, 
or the greater part of them, were little more than a 
change of profession and name ; the substitution of 

* Lardner, iv. 13 — 15. 
T 2 



276 LECTURE IX. 

a christian church, for a heathen temple— a mere 
transition from one system of religious ceremonial to 
another. In times of fierce persecution, the reality 
of a conversion is tried " as byjfire.'* There was 
little during the first three hundred years of Chris- 
tianity to encourage a profession of its faith, except 
so far as the heart had become sufficiently devoted 
to its holy and self-denying duties, to be willing to 
suffer on their account the loss of all things. Mere 
cold assent and dead formality were not likely to put 
themselves in the way of being torn by wild beasts^ 
or buried in the mines. The change wrought in the 
converts was, for the most part, and notoriously, a 
change of heart and of life, as well as an entire 
change of opinion. The striking alteration in those 
who embraced the Gospel, bore a powerful attesta- 
tion to its divine authority. Philosophers com- 
plained that men improved but little, in goodness, 
under their instructions; while Paul could say to the 
christians of Corinth, a city famous for the profligacy 
of its inhabitants, " Suck were some of you: but ye 
are washed^ ye are sanctified ^ ye are justified in the 
name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of our 
God.'' '' The doctrine of Christ,'' says a writer of 
those times, " did convert the most wicked persons 
who embraced it from all their debaucheries, to the 
practice of all virtues."* So remarkable was the dif- 
ference between the christians and those whom they 
had once resembled, that Origen, defending their 
faith against the attacks of Celsus, challenges a 
comparison between their moral character and that 
of any other societies in the world. Even the sceptic 
Gibbon unites in this testimony. Speaking of these 
early converts, he says, *' As they emerged from sin 
and superstition to the glorious hope of immortality, 
they resolved to devote themselves to a life not only 
of virtue, but of penitence. The desire of perfection 

* Origen cont. Celsum. 



LECTURE IX. 277 

became the ruling passion of their soul." *< Their 
serious and sequestered life, averse to the gay luxury 
of the age, inured them to chastity, temperance, 
economy, and all the sober and domestic virtues. 
The contempt of the world exercisred them in the 
habits of humility, meekness, and patience. The 
more they were persecuted, the more closely they 
adhered to each other. Their mutual charity and 
unsuspecting confidence has been remarked by in- 
fidels, and was too often abused by perfidious friends. 
Even their faults, or rather their errors, were derived 
from an excess of virtue."* From all these autho- 
rities, it is evident that the propagation of the Gospel 
was not only of great rapidity, but of great power in 
transforming the hearts and lives of the multitudes 
who embraced it. 

In connection with the moral power and vast ex- 
tent of this work, it should be considered, that 
among those who were brought to the obedience of 
Christ, were men of all classes, from the most ob- 
scure and ignorant, to the most elevated and learned. 
In the New Testament, we read of an eminent 
counsellor, and of a chief ruler, and of a great com- 
pany of priests, and of two centurions of the Pcoman 
army, and of a proconsul of Cyprus, and of a member 
of the Areopagus at Athens, and even of certain of 
the household of the emperor Nero, as having been 
converted to the faith. Many of the converts were 
highly esteemed for talents and attainments. Such 
was Justin Martyr, who, while a heathen, was con- 
versant with all the schools of philosophy. Such was 
Pantaenus, who, before his conversion, was a philoso- 
pher of the school of the Stoics, and whose instruc- 
tions in human learning at Alexandria, after he be- 
came a christian, were much frequented by students 
of various characters. Such also was Origen, whose 
reputation for learning was so great, that not only 

* Gibbon, ii. xv. 138—9. 



278 LECTURE IX. 

chrisUans, but philosophers flocked to his lectures 
upon mathematics and philosophy, as well as on the 
Scriptures. Even the noted Porphyry did not re- 
frain from a high eulogium upon the learning of 
Origen * It may help to convey some notion of the 
character and quality of many early christians ; of 
their learning and their labours ; to notice the chris- 
tian writers who flourished in these ages. St. Je- 
rome's catalogue contains one hundred and twenty 
writers previous to the year 360 from the death of 
Christ. The catalogue is thus introduced : '' Let 
those who say the church has had no philosophers, 
nor eloquent and learned men, observe who and 
what they were who founded, established, and 
adorned it.^f Pl»«y» i" ^^^ celebrated letter to 
Trajan, written about sixty- three years after the 
Gospel began to be preached to the Gentiles, ex- 
pressly states, that, in the provinces of Pontus and 
Bithynia, many of all ranks were accused to him of 
the crime of being christians.! 

* Stillingfleet's Orig. Sac. 273—4. t See Paley, 34G. 

t The early advocates of Christianity, in controversy with 
the heathen of Greece and Rome, were accustomed to dwell 
with great stress upon the argument from its propagation. 
Chrysostom, of the fourth century, writes : " The apostles of 
Christ were twelve, and they gained the whole world. 
" Zeno, Plato, Socrates, and many others, endeavoured to 
introduce a new course of life, but in vain ; whereas Jesus^ 
Christ not only taught, but settled a new polity, or way of 
living all over the world." " The doctrines and writings of 
fishermen, who were beaten and driven from society, and 
always lived in the midst of dangers, have been readily em- 
braced by learned and unlearned, bondmen and free, kings 
and soldiers, Greeks and barbarians." " Though kings and 
tyrants, and people, strove to extinguish the spark of faith, 
such a flame of true religion arose, as filled the whole world. 
If you go to India, and Scythia, and the utmost ends of the 
earth you will every where find the doctrine of Christ en- 
lightening the souls of men.'^ Augustine, of the same cen- 
tury, speaking of the heathen philosphers, says. If they 
were to live again, and should see the churches crowded, 

he temples forsaken, and men called from the love of tempo- 



LECTURE IX. 279 

We have now prepared the several facts that con- 
stitute the materials of our argument. Here is an 
unquestionable historical event — the rapid and ex- 
tensive spread of Christianity over the whole Roman 
empire in less than seventy years from the outset of 
its preaching. Has any thing else of a like kind 
been known in the world ? Did the learning and 
popularity of the ancient philosophers, powerfully 
aided by the favour of the great, and the peculiar 
character of the age, accomplish any thing in the 
least resembling the success of the apostles ? It is 
a notorious fact, that only one of them ** ever dared 
to attack the base religion of the nation, and substi- 
tute better representations of God in its stead, al- 
though its absurdity was apparent to many of them* 
An attempt of this kind having cost the bold Socrates 
his life, no others had resolution enough to offer 
such a sacrifice for the general good. To excuse 
their timidity in this respect, and give it the appear- 
ance of profound wisdom, they called to their aid 
the general principle, that it is imprudent and inju- 
rious to let people see the whole truth at once ; that 
it is not only necessary to spare sacred prejudices, 
but, in particular circumstances, an act of bene- 
volence to deceive the great mass of the people. 
This was the unanimous opinion of almost all the 
ancient philosophical schools."* No further proof is 
needed, that such men were incapable of effecting 
any thing approximating to the great moral revo- 
lution produced in the world by the power of the 

ral, fleeting things, to the hope of eternal life, and the posses- 
sion of spiritual and heavenly blessings, and readily em- 
bracing them, provided they were really such as they are 
said to have been, perhaps they would say, * These are 
things which we did not dare to say to the people ; we rather 
gave way to their custom, than endeavoured to draw them 
over to our best thoughts and apprehensions.* ** — Lardner^ ii, 
014 and 697. 

* Reinhard's Plan, p. 165, 6* 



280 LECTURE IX. 

Gospel. How different the apostles JL- — ^boldly attack- 
ing all vice, superstition, and errbr, at all hazards, 
in all places, not counting their lives dear unto them, 
so that they might ** testify the Gospel of the grace 
of God,'' But where else shall we turn for a parallel 
to the work we have described ? What efforts, in- 
dependently of the Gospel, were ever successful in 
the moral regeneration of whole communities of the 
superstitious and licentious ? 

The only event in the annals of time that has ever 
been supposed to bear any resemblance to the pro- 
pagation of Christianity, is the rapid progress of 
Mohammedanism. But a little reflection will show 
you, that the single fact of its rapid and extensive 
progress is the only point of resemblance ; while, 
in every thing else, there is direct opposition. The 
Koran based its cause upon no profession of miracles, 
and therefore had no detection to fear. The Gospel 
rested all upon its repeated miracles, and, conse- 
quently, unless it had been true, would have been 
certain of detection. Mohammed was of the most 
powerful and honourable family in Mecca, the chief 
city of his nation ; and though not rich by inheritance, 
became so by marriage. Jesus was of a family of 
poor and unknown inhabitants of an obscure village 
in Judea, and had not where to lay his head. Mo- 
hammed began his work among the rich and great. 
His first three years were consumed in attaching to 
his cause thirteen of the chief people of Mecca. 
Jesus commenced among the poor. During his three 
years of ministry on earth, twelve obscure Jews, 
many of them fishermen, all unlearned and power- 
less, were his chosen disciples. Of the first thirteen 
apostles of the Koran, all ultimately attained to riches 
and honours, to the command of armies, and the 
government of kingdoms. Of the twelve apostles 
who commenced the propagation of the Gospel, all 
attained to the utmost poverty, contempt, and igno- 



LECTURE IX. 281 

miny, and, all but one, to a violent death on account 
of their cause. Tlie age when Mohammed set up his 
banner, was eminently propitious to his enterprise. 
" Nothing can equal the ignorance and darkness that 
reigned in this century."* Science, philosophy, and 
theology, had every where declined into almost 
nothingness. The age when the apostles of Christ 
began their work was eminently unpropitious to any 
cause but that of God. It was the Augustan age, 
Mohammedanism took its rise in an interior town of 
Arabia, among a barbarous people^ and its first con- 
quests were among the rudest and least enlightened 
of the most ignorant regions of the world. Chris- 
tianity arose in the splendid metropolis of a popu- 
lous and intelligent nation, and achieved her earliest 
victories in some of the most polished and enlightened 
cities of the world. In the town of Mecca, where 
Mohammed opened his mission, there was no estab- 
lished religion to contend with. In the city of Jeru- 
salem, where Jesus and his apostles began their 
work of love, an established religion was powerfully 
fortified within the triple wall of priest, magistrate, 
and people, and defended by all the powers and 
passions of the nation. When the prophet of Arabia 
appeared, his cause was favoured by the feuds that 
prevailed among the Arab tribes around him, and 
by the bitter dissensions and cruel animosities then 
reigning among various sects of degenerate Chris- 
tians ; dissensions that filled the greater part of the 
East with such enormities as rendered the very name 
of Christianity odious to many. When the great 
Prophet of Christianity appeared, the temple of Janus 
was shut, in token of universal peace, so that all 
the schools of philosophy, all sects of superstition, 
and all the powers and animosities of the nations, 
were free to combine against his Gospel. Mo- 
hammed attempted to conciliate the prevailing re- 

* Mosheim. 



282 LECTURE IX. 

ligion of the empire, by preaching to the ignorant 
generation of Christians that his religion was no 
other than what had been originally their own. The 
unity of God, the prophetic character of the patri- 
archs and prophets of the Old Testament, and the 
divine mission of Jesus, he carefully and artfully 
asserted ; pretending to restore the purity, instead 
of attacking the foundations, of the religion they 
had taught. This was politic. The apostles, on 
the other hand, attacked boldly, and unsparingly, 
the religion of all the world. While asserting the 
essential principles of the religion of Moses, they 
aimed directly at the subversion of its, then, dege- 
nerate institutions ; and, as to all Gentile nations, 
pretended to nothing but uncompromising opposition. 
This certainly was any thing but politic. Mohammed, 
while he required nothing of his followers that called 
for self-denial,* expressly sanctioned and promoted 
their strongest passions. Impurity, revenge, ambi- 
tion, pride, were his cardinal and honoured indul- 
gences. Thus he enticed human nature. I need 
not say that the requisitions, and allurements pro- 
claimed by the apostles of Christ were precisely the 
contrary. But thus they repelled human nature. 

Even with all these advantages in his favour, 
Mohammed, at the end of the first twelve years of 
his enterprise, had not extended his cause beyond 
the walls of Mecca, and had gained but few dis- 
ciples within them, because his efforts had been 
confined to persuasion. While Christianity, with all 
its disadvantages, in half the time from the beginning 
of the ministry of Christ, could number more than 
ten thousand disciples in Jerusalem, and churches 
throughout all Judea, and Galilee, and Samaria ; 

* The prohibition of wine, the fast of Ramadan, and the 
pilgrimage to Mecca, were no part of Mohammedanism until 
several years after its commencement, when military successes 
had completely established its authority. 



LECTURE IX. 283 

and yet her efforts were also confined to persuasion. 
But Mohammed, after twelve years' experience, dis- 
covered that, even with all his indulgence to passion 
and pride, some argument much more cogent than 
that of persuasion was necessary to convince the 
nations. This was found at the edge of the sword. 
He sounded the trump of war ; promised the spoils 
of nations, the fairest of the captives, and the most 
luxurious arbour in Paradise, to those who would 
join his standard. Then, proselytes were multiplied. 
The roving Arabs, converted to the faith for the sake 
of the plunder, flocked to his cause. Death or con- 
version was the only choice of the idolater. '* The 
Koran, the tribute, or the sword," was vouchsafed to 
Jews and Christians. Henceforward the demon of 
Mohammedanism was always seated on the hilt of 
the sword, and made its way by force and slaughter. 
How and why it prevailed both rapidly and exten- 
sively from this time, I am as little bound to explain, 
as to account for the martial prowess of Napoleon, 
or of the Goths and Vandals. It was the success of 
the warrior, not of the prophet. 

But I must not leave this subject, without turning 
what to some may have seemed almost parallel to 
the success of the Gospel, into an auxiliary illustra- 
tion of its superhuman power. It is a strong fact, 
in proof that God was on the side of the apostles, 
that when they had every thing on earth to contend 
with, they succeeded, by mere efforts of persuasion, 
in subduing kingdoms, and bringing innumerable 
multitudes to holiness of life ; while Mohammed and 
his apostles, in the most favourable circumstances, 
were confined, as long as they used no weapon but 
that of persuasion, to a few followers, and, had they 
never taken the sword, would probably never have 
been heard of beyond the sands of Arabia. 

But should it still be contended that the success 
of the apostles may be accounted for without re- 



284 LECTURE IX. 

ference to supernatural aid; let the question be 
answered, why, when the same human means have 
since been employed in so many instances, nothing 
even approximating to the same results has ever 
ensued. Jews are found at present as numerous as 
ever. Some of the strongest obstacles which op- 
posed the success of the Gospel among them, in the 
apostolic age, do not now exist. They have no 
religious establishment ; no regular priesthood ; no 
power to persecute. Christianity, on the other hand, 
is established. Instead of appearing to the Jew as a 
thing of yesterday, advocated but by a few obscure 
men, as she did of old ; she now presents herself 
under the sanction of eighteen centuries, illustrated 
by the learning of her disciples, professed by all 
civilized nations. It cannot be said that less human 
effort, in the aggregate, has been employed for the 
conversion of the Jews, than was used by the twelve 
apostles. Much more money has been expended ; 
much more learning has been devoted ; much more 
human power has been exerted ; many more indi- 
viduals have been employed. The same Gospel has 
been preached. The same arguments have been 
urged. And why should not corresponding effects 
appear ? " There is reason to think that there were 
more Jews converted by the apostles in one day 
than have since been won over in the last thousand 
years."* The simple explanation is and must be, 
that the great power of God was with the apostles 
for the establishment of the truth, in a degree far 
greater than that in which it is now vouchsafed to 
his ministers in promoting the wide extension of the 
truth. 

From the Jews turn to the heathens. There is no 

reason to believe that the heathenism of the present 

day is any more opposed to the propagation of 

Christianity, than that of the world in the age of the 

* Bryant on the Truth of Christianity. 



LECTURE IX. 285 

apostles. Instead of twelve, there are hundreds of 
labourers in the field — men of education, talent, 
indefatigable zeal, undaunted devotion. The art of 
printing has furnished them with facilities of which 
the apostles, unless it be conceded that they pos- 
sessed the miraculous gift of tongues, were entirely 
destitute. The Scriptures are now circulated in full, 
while, in the days of St. Paul, the canon being 
incomplete, they were circulated only in parts. In 
addition to all this, Christianity is recommended 
among many heathen nations by the political impor- 
tance of the countries from which its preachers have 
gone, and in some by the actual co-operation of 
christian powers ruling in the midst of pagan insti- 
tutions. With these important advantages, what is 
the success of present efforts among the heathen ? 
Enough, indeed, to reward all the zeal expended in 
their support ; enough to show, that still the power 
of God is with the Gospel, and that ample encourage- 
ment is given for all the increase of effort which 
christians can ever bestow on the heathen ; but 
nothing comparable with the success of the apostles. 
Paul was instrumental in converting more heathens 
in thirty years, than all modern missionaries in the 
last five hundred. Explain this fact! It is absurd 
to attempt it, in view of all the circumstances of the 
case, except you admit the solution given by Paul 
himself — *' 1 have planted, and Apollos watered, but 
God gave the increase,*' Without this grand truth, 
'' God gave the increase,** Christianity would have 
perished on the cross of its founder. 

I have now set before you a miracle, the evidence 
of which no eye can be too blind to see : Christianity 
universally 'propagated, and yet propagated by no 
earthly influence but that of the apostles. This is 
the miracle. It is as directly contrary to the laws of 
nature and to universal experience, as if, at the word 
of man, the desert of Arabia should bud and blossom 



286 LECTURE IX. 

like a fruitful garden, or the sepulchre give up its 
dead. As long as this one fact, the propagation of 
Christianity, shall remain , the Gospel will be supported 
by a pillar of evidence, which infidels can only remove 
by taking away the foundation of all inductive evi- 
dence, and bringing down the whole temple of human 
knowledge to their own destruction. 

Now, in conclusion, let us see what an unbeliever 
must believe in consistency with his profession. He 
must believe that the apostles were either such 
weak-minded men as to imagine that their crucified 
Master had been with them, from time to time, 
during forty days after his burial— had conversed 
with them, and eaten with them— and that they had 
every sensible evidence of his resurrection— while in 
truth he had not been near them, but was still in his 
sepulchre ; or else that they were so wicked and 
deceitful as to go all over the world preaching that 
he was risen from the dead, when they knew it was a 
gross fabrication. Suppose the unbeliever to choose 
the latter of these alternatives. Then he believes, 
not only that those men were so singularly attached 
to this untruth as to give themselves up to all manner 
of disgrace, and persecution, and labour, for the sake 
of making all the world believe it, knowing that 
their own destruction could be the only consequence ; 
but also, what is still more singular, that when they 
plunged, immediately at the outset of their ministry, 
into an immense multitude of those who, having 
lately crucified the Saviour, were full of enmity to 
his disciples; they succeeded, without learning, elo- 
quence, power, or a single conceivable motive, in 
making three thousand of them believe that he 
whom they had seen on the cross was indeed alive 
again, and believe it so fully as to renounce every 
thing, and be willing to suffer any thing for the sake 
of it, and this on the very spot where the guards 
that had kept the sepulchre were at hand to tell 



LECTURE IX. * 287 

what was become of the body of Jesus. He must 
believe, moreover, that, although in attempting to 
propagate a new religion, to the exclusion of every 
other, they were undertaking what was entirely new, 
and opposed to the views of all nations ; although 
the doctrines they preached were resisted by all the 
influence of the several priesthoods ; all the power 
of the several governments ; all the passions, habits, 
and prejudices, of the people ; and all the wit and 
pride of the philosophers of all nations ; although 
the age was such as insured to their fabrications the 
most intelligent examination, with the strongest pos- 
sible disposition to detect them ; although, in them- 
selves, these infatuated men were directly the reverse 
of what such resistance demanded, and, when they 
commenced, were surrounded by circumstances of 
the most depressing kind, and by opposers specially 
exulting in the confidence of their destruction ; 
although the mode they adopted was of all others 
most calculated to expose their own weakness and 
dishonesty, and to embitter the enmity and increase 
the contempt of their opposers, so that they encoun- 
tered every where the most tremendous persecutions, 
till torture and death were almost synonymous with 
the name of Christian ; although they had nothing 
to propose, to Jew or Gentile, as a matter of faith, 
but what the wisdom of the world ridiculed, and the 
vice of the world hated, and all men were united in 
despising ; although they had nothing earthly with 
which to tempt any one to receive their fabrication, 
except the necessity of an entire change in all his 
habits and dispositions, and an assurance that tribu- 
lations and persecutions must be his portion : Yet, 
when philosophers, with all their learning, and rank, 
and subtlety, and veneration, could produce no 
effect on the public mind, these obscure Galileans 
obtained such influence throughout the whole ex- 
tent of the Roman empire, and especially in the 



288 LECTURE IX. 

most enlightened cities, that, in thirty years, what 
they themselves, (by the supposition) did not beUeve, 
they made hundreds of thousands of all classes, 
philosophers, senators, governors, priests, soldiers, as 
well as plebeians, believe, and maintain unto death ; 
yea, they planted this doctrine of their own invention 
so deeply that all the persecutions of three hundred 
years could not root it up ; they established the 
Gospel so permanently, that in three hundred years 
it was the established religion of an empire co- 
extensive with the known world, and continues still 
the religion of all civilized nations. This, says the 
unbeliever, they did simply by theii- own wit and 
industry; and yet, he well knows, that preachers of 
the Gospel, with incomparably more learning, with 
equal industry, in far greater numbers, and in cir- 
cumstances immeasurably more propitious, have 
attempted to do something of the same kind among 
heathen nations, and could never even approximate to 
their success. Still the apostles had no help but 
that of their own ingenuity and diligence ! Such is 
the belief of the unbeliever. To escape acknow- 
ledging that the apostles were aided by miraculous 
assistance, he makes them to have possessed in 
themselves miraculous ability. To get rid of one 
miracle in the work, he has to make twelve miracles 
out of the twelve agents of the work. The christian 
takes a far different course. " Paul planted, Apollos 
watered, but God gave the increase'' The weapons 
of their warfare were not carnal, hut mighty through 
God, to the pulling down of strong holds. To 
which solution philosophy or common sense would 
award the prize of rational decision, it is easy to 
determine. 

The argument from the propagation of Christianity 
is not yet complete. Satisfactory already, it is yet 
to receive an immense accession of strength. ** The 
wilderness and the solitary place," the immense 



LECTURE X. 289 

regions of Pagan and Mohammedan desolation, shall 
yet be glad for the blessings of the Gospel, and 
** the desert rejoice and blossom as the rose." Every 
nation and kindred shall be brought *' into captivity 
to the obedience of Christ,*' for the word hath gone 
forth out of the mouth of the Lord, ** I will give 
thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the 
uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession." 
How should every heart respond Amen! and pray, 
"Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth, as 
it is in heaven !" 



LECTURE X. 

THE FRUITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

In our preceding lectures, we have followed tlie 
currents of three independent arguments, each of 
which was found sufficient to conduct us to a com- 
plete proof of the divine authority of the Gospel of 
Christ. That, to which we now proceed, is espe- 
cially capable of being *' known and read of all 
men," and deserves to be ranked in the highest 
class of the evidences of Christianity. Our blessed 
Lord, speaking of false pretenders to divine revela- 
tion, delivered the following rule, by which they 
might be distinguished : ** Fe shall knoiu them by 
their fruits. Do men gather grapes of thorns, or 
figs of thistles ? Even so, every good tree bringeth 
forth good fruit ; but a corrupt tree bringeth forth 
evil fruit. Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know 
them,'* This is a test universally approved of, and 
necessarily employed. Its influence on our judg- 
ment is unavoidable ; and, when properly applied, 
its results are certain. The goodness of a tree 
cannot be doubted, while we know the excellence of 
its fruit. No more reason have we to question the 

V 



290 LECTURE X. 

holy character and divine origin of rehgion, while its 
legitimate effects on the lives and hearts of its 
genuine disciples are holy. We may come to an 
erroneous conclusion by judging erroneously of the 
fruit ; by ascribing effects to causes which did not 
produce them ; by charging upon religion a train of 
consequences of which it was only the incidental 
occasion, instead of the natural cause. But these 
are errors in the application, and independent of the 
correctness of the test. Whenever you have ascer- 
tained the true results of any system of doctrine, you 
have found a plain and certain expression of its in- 
trinsic character. It is good in proportion as the 
fruit is good. If its fruit be godly, it must itself be 

of God. 

Let infidelity be always tried by this equitable 
rule, so as to receive the full credit of all the evils 
which may easily be found to have grown upon its 
branches ; let it be stripped of all those adventitious 
circumstances of a favourable kind for which it is 
indebted to the surrounding influence of Christianity; 
and few eyes will fail to see that the root is one of 
bitterness, and the tree fit only to be cut down as a 
cumberer of the ground. If men would judge chris^ 
tianity, also, by the fair application of this rule, care- 
fully separating from her genuine productions all 
those of which, however enemies may love to lay 
them to her charge, she is only the innocent occa- 
sion ; it would require but little discernment to be 
convinced of her heavenly origin, and of the duty of 
all to spread the knowledge and acceptance of her 
divine revelation. Such will be the object of the 
present lecture. Christianity may be known by its 
fruits. Christians are desirous that their faith should 
be judged by this test, as well as by every other 
that is ju^ and equal. We set out, therefore, with 
this question. What are the fruits of Christianity ? 
In the examination of this subject, we will consider, 



LECTURE X. 291 

L The effects of christianlty on society 

IN GENERAL. 

II. Its EFFECTS ON THE CHARACTER AND HAP- 
PINESS OF GENUINE DISCIPLES. 

Reserving the latter of these divisions for another 
lecture, we devote our attention at present exclu- 
sively to the former. 

In proceeding to illustrate the beneficial effects of 
Christianity on society in general, I knov7 of no way 
so direct as to consider in what condition the coun- 
tries now blessed with its influence would have re- 
mained, had they been left to the several forms of 
religion under which they had previously subsisted. 
Let us take a brief survey of the moral state of the 
ancient world in the age when the preaching of the 
cross effected its wonderful revolution in the whole 
fabric of society. And that we may not be accused 
of unfairness, let us take into view, not the more 
distant and uncivilized provinces, but those chief 
central states, where all the light and moral vigour 
of the heathen world were concentrated. Let our 
survey be confined to the society of Italy and Greece, 
where philosophy held her court, and literature and 
the arts were cultivated with the utmost devotion 
and success. Unfortunately for the interests of 
truth, the history of Greece and Rome has fallen, 
for the most part, into the hands of writers much 
more concerned with their intellectual and martial 
prowess, than their moral attainments and social 
virtues ; so that while the reader is occupied in ad- 
miring the acuteness of their schoolmen, the taste of 
their poets, the perfection of their arts, and the war- 
like character of their soldiery, he is seldom called 
to look within the enclosures of society, and inquire 
how they lived, what manner of men they were in 
their families, in their social relationsi, in their moral 
principles, and their private habits. 

A certain eminent writer, who lived in the age to 

u2 



292 LECTURE X. 

which we refer, addressing the people of Rome, de- 
scribes the heathen population of the civilized world 
as given up to the vilest, most unnatural, and beastly 
affections ; filled with all unrighteousness and de- 
grading wickedness ; full of envy, murder, deceit, 
malignity ; disobedient to parents ; covenant-break- 
ers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerci- 
ful, not only committing such things as were worthy 
of death, but having pleasure in them that did them. 
Such, according to St. Paul, were the polished 
Grecians and the sterner Romans.* 

1st. Consider their religion. " Professing them- 
selves to be wise, they became fools, and changed 
the glory of the uncorruptible God into an image 
made like to corruptible man, and to birds and four- 
footed beasts, and creeping things.^'f Deities were 
multiplied till there was a god for every thmg, and 
any thing answered for a god. Athens was full of 
statues dedicated to different deities ; those of va- 
rious countries being so crowded together, that it 
was said to be '* easier to find a god than a man.'' 
There was the god Caius Csesar, and the god Au- 
gustus, and the god Lucius Coesar, and the god- 
dess Julia, the profligate daughter of Augustus, to 
whom the rulers of Athens ascribed the title of 
Providence. The senate of the Areopagus, and 
that of the six hundred, erected her statue, and 
enacted her divinity, an altar having been conse- 
crated many years before, to " the Unknown Godr 
Rome exceeded Athens in the number of her gods 
only by having, as the mistress of the world, all 
nations to collect from, and all forms of paganism 
to countenance. " The deities of a thousand groves 
and a thousand streams possessed, m peace, then- 
local and respective influence ; nor could the Roman 
who deprecated the wrath of the Tiber, deride the 
Eoyptian who presented his offering to the beneh- 
"^ ♦ Rom. i. 29—32. t Rom. i. 22, 23. 



LECTURE X. 293 

cent genius of the Nile. Every virtue and even vice 
acquired its divine representative ; every art and 
profession its patron, whose attributes, in the most 
distant ages and countries, were uniformly derived 
from the character of their peculiar votaries. It was 
the custom (of the Romans) to tempt the protectors 
of besieged cities by the promise of more distin- 
guished honours than they possessed in their native 
country. Rome gradually became the common 
temple of her subjects, and the freedom of the city 
was bestowed on all the gods of mankind.^'* *' In 
this mania for foreign gods, the nobles and the em- 
perors themselves set the most corrupting examples. 
G^rmanicus and Agrippina devoted themselves 
especially to Egyptian gods. So also Vespasian • 
Nero served all gods with the exception of the Dea 
Syra. Marcus Aurelius caused the priests of all 
foreign gods and nations to be assembled, in order 
to implore aid for the Roman empire against the 
incursions of the Marcomanni. Commodus caused 
himself to be initiated into the mysteries of the 
Egyptian Isis and the Persian Mithras. Severus 
worshipped especially the Egyptian Serapis ; Cara- 
calla chiefly the Egyptian Isis ; and Heliogabalus 
the Syrian deities ; though he was desirous of be- 
coming a priest of the Jewish, Samaritan, and Chris- 
tian religions.'^f 

The traditions of the principal divinities of the 
ancient heathen are a true guide to the vices of their 
worship. What the gods were said to have been 
iu their lives, their worshippers were actually in their 
service. ** It is a shame,*' said one who knew them 
well, even to ** speak of those things which were done 
of them in secret.'' The chief oracles of the heath- 
ens appointed human sacrifices ; so that not only 
the barbarians, but even the Athenians, Lacedse- 

* Gibbon's Decline and Fall, i. 32, 35, 36. 
t Prof. Tholuck on Heathenism.— Biblical Repository. 



294 LECTURE X. 

nionians, and Romans, were accustomed to worship 
idols in the blood of their fellow-creatures. What 
must have been the state of public morals when gods 
were patrons of vice, and their rites encouraged both 
cruelty and obsceneness, it is easier to imagine than 
describe. " Eusebius is compelled to use language, 
when describing the height of wickedness and im- 
purity which the worship of the heathens attained, 
such as no virtuous man can read without shudder- 
ing.*' The gods were entreated, by costly offerings, 
on splendid altars, to favour the indulgence of un- 
natural lusts; the perpetration of murders; the 
robbery of the orphan and the widow. Seneca 
exclaims, '* How great is now the madness of men ! 
They lisp the most abominable prayers in the ears 
of the gods. And if a man is found listening, they 
are silent. What a man ought not to hear, they do 
not blush to rehearse to God."* Well might St. 
Paul describe them as *' given up to uncLanness 
through the lusts of their own hearts "-\ 

2d. Consider the spirit of cruelty that reigned 
among those people. It was not solely owing to 
the madness and depravity of a Tiberius, a Caligula, 
a Nero, or a Caracalla, that a cruel and sanguinary 
spirit, in their day, was so universal. Had not the 
whole mass, the peasant, the soldier, the citizen, 
and the senator, as well as the prince, been foully 
tainted, the monstrous enormities of those vicious 
tyrants could never have been perpetrated. Such 
was the cruelty of Romans to their slaves, that it 
was not unusual to put the aged and useless to 
perish on an island in the Tiber ; and some masters 
would even drown them, as food for the inhabitants 
of theii fish-ponds4 Scenes of blood and slaughter 

• Epistle 10. t See Potter's Antiquities, ii. 301. 
X " The custom of exposing old, useless, or sick slaves on 
an island of the Tiber, there to starve, seems to have been 
pretty common in Rome ; and whoever recovered after having 



LECTURE X. 295 

were the public diversions of the people. Witness 
the shows of gladiat(Jrs in the crowded amphitheatre, 
when, to celebrate a birth-day, or gratify a popular 
whim, crowds of captives were set to mutual slaugh- 
ter, or else to contend with the fury of wild beasts. 
What must have been the moral sensibility of those 
nations, of which the most refined females delighted 
in such revolting cruelties, criticising the skill of the 
ferocious swordsman, and exclaiming with enthu- 
siasm at the graceful stroke that opened the heart 
of the vanquished, and poured out his life-blood 
upon the arena !* St. Paul describes the heathen 
community as full of murder and malignity, Hume, 
speaking of " the most illustrious period of Roman 
history,*' says, that ** at that time, the horrid prac- 
tice of poisoning was so common, that during part of 
a season a prsetor punished capitally for this crime 
above three thousand persons in a part of Italy, and 

been so exposed, had his liberty given him by an edict of 
the emperor Claudius." ** The ergastuUt^ or dungeons, where 
slaves in chains were forced to work, were very common all 
over Italy." " A chained slave for a porter, was usual in 
Rome, as appears from Ovid and other authors." The evi- 
dence of slaves " was always extorted by the most exquisite 
torments." — Hume on the Populousness of Ancient Nations, 

♦ " Who," says Hume, " can read the accounts of the 
amphitneatrical entertainments without horror ! or who is 
surprised that the emperors should treat people in the same 
way the people treated their inferiors? One's humanity is 
apt to renew the barbarous wish of Caligula, that the people 
had but one neck. A man could almost be pleased, by a 

single blow, to put an end to such a race of monsters." 

Note to Essay on the Popnlousness of Ayicient Nations, 

How Cicero, " the mildest of all pagan philosophers and 
orators,** regarded with an inhuman approbation the cruel- 
ties above named, may be seen from his sayings, as quoted 
in Jortin*s Discourses concerning the Truth of the Christian 
Religion. He states that the supplications of a poor Avretch 
begging his life, on the arena, only made the spectators, as a 
matter of course, the more violent against him, and the more 
set upon his death. See the Oration for Milo. 



296 LECTURE X. 

found informations of this nature still multiplying 
upon him ! So depraved in private life," adds the 
historian, " were that people whom in their history 
we so much admire."* Murder was in common 
practice among all classes. ** Such," says Gibbon, 
'* was the unhappy condition even of Roman em- 
perors, that, whatever might be their conduct, their 
fate was commonly the same : almost every reign is 
closed by the same disgusting repetition of treason 
and murder." Suicide was not only extensively 
practised, but advocated as a right, and commended 
as virtuous. Seneca pleaded for it. Cicero was its 
advocate. Brutus and Cassius, with many others, 
both defended and practised it. Cato is praised by 
Plutarch for having been his own murderer. These, 
in their day, were among the lights of the heathen 
world ! What then, must have been the awful 
deeds of darkness among the more ignorant popu- 
lace ! 

They were ^* without natural affection,'^ Nothing 
could exhibit, in a more appalling light, their utter 
annihilation of moral principle, and natural affec- 
tion, than the fact that ** the exposition, that is, the 
murder of new-born infants, was an allowed practice 
in almost all the states of Greece and Rome : even 
among the polite and civilized Athenians, the 
abandoning of one's child to hunger or to wild 
beasts was regarded without blame or censure."f 
" This practice," says Hume, " was very common ; 
and is not spoken of by any author of those times 
with the horror it deserves, or scarcely even with 
disapprobation. Plutarch, the humane, good-natured 
Plutarch, mentions it as a merit in Attains, king of 
Pergamus, that he murdered, or, if you will, ex- 
posed all his own children in order to leave his 
crown to the son of his brother, Eumenes. It was 

* Essay on Politics. 

t Smith's Theory of Moral Sentiments 



LECTURE X. 297 

Solon, the most celebrated of the sages of Greece, 
that gave parents permission by law to kill their 
children."* Philosophers supported the custom by 
arguments. Aristotle thought it should be encou- 
raged by the magistrates. Plato maintained the 
same inhuman doctrine. It was complained of, as 
a great singularity, that the laws of Thebes forbade 
the practice. In all the provinces, and especially 
in Italy, the crime was daily perpetrated. From one 
end to the other, the Roman empire was stained with 
the blood of murdered infants. Think of the state 
of domestic virtue, when such was the prevailing in- 
humanity of parents; and the learned defended it 
as wise ; the magistrate countenanced it as useful ; 
and public sentiment regarded it as innocent ! 
Such was the power of a father by the Roman law, 
that his adult children might be sent to the mines, 
sold into slavery, or destroyed at his will ; his 
daughter could be compelled, at his discretion, to 
forsake a husband whom he himself had approved, 
while his wife could be dismissed at pleasure ; and 
for certain crimes, some of them of a very trivial 
nature, might be put to death. The authority of the 
father was that of a despot. The subjection of his 
family was that of slaves. 

3d. But the Greeks and Romans were as notorious 
for their departure from the lowest grade of decency, 
as for their savage disruption of all the ties of natural 
affection. Sallust, speaking of the Roman youth in 
the time of Cicero, says, ** Luxury, avarice, and 
pride, enslaved them ; they wantoned in rapine and 
prodigality; undervalued their own, and coveted 
what belonged to others ; trampled on modesty, 
friendship, and continence ; confounded things 
divine and human, and threw off all manner of con- 
sideration and restraint." " Men and women laid 

• Hume on the Populousness of Ancient Nations. 



298 LECTURE X. 

aside all regard to chastity/'* We cannot name the 
degrading crimes which in Greece were sanctioned 
by the pubHc laws, and at Rome were practised in 
the time of Seneca without shame. It was con- 
sidered a singular example in Athens, that the most 
moral philosopher did not indulge in them. Even 
Cicero could speak, without any sign of disappro- 
bation, of Cotta, an eminent Roman, as having 
owned an habitual addiction to the vileness we are 
alluding to, and as having quoted the authorities of 
ancient philosophers in its vindication. There was 
no species of degrading crime, which had not its at- 
tempted justification in the written doctrines, and its 
shameless perpetration in the avowed practices of 
the wise men, and such as are usually supposed to 
have been the good men, of the most civilized nations 
of antiquity. Quinctilian, speaking of the philo- 
sophers of the first century of the christian era, says, 
**The most notorious vices are screened under that 
name ; and they do not labour to maintain the 
character of philosophers by virtue and study, but 
conceal the most vicious lives under an austere 
look and singularity of dress "f Such, also, is the 
acknowledgment of Plutarch, with regard to the 
ancient philosophers in general. While he owns 
that they were generally noted for a certain infamous 
vice which we cannot name ; he excuses them by the 
plea that they improved their minds at the same 
time that they corrupted their bodies. Lucian and 
others unite in this representation. Neither Seneca, 
nor Xenophon, nor Plato, nor Aristotle, nor even 
Socrates, whose morals have been extolled by in- 
fidels, as surpassing any thing in the Bible, is ex- 
cepted from the revolting account of these writers. 
Granting that jealousy and calumny, among the 
ancients, included some of those illustrious names 
under a charge so degrading ; what must have been 
* Rose's Translation. f Quinctilian, Inst. Orat. 



LECTURE X. 299 

the character of the great mass of the philosophers, 
when calumny durst venture so far ? 

Such were the men whom our modern reformers 
would hold up to the public as patterns of virtue. 
*' They opposed each other," says Voltaire, *' in their 
dogmas ; but in morality they were all agreed." 
*' There has been no philosopher, in all antiquity, 
who has not been desirous of making men better.*' 
To the truth of the first assertion, we have no reason 
to object. In a sense directly opposite to that in 
which the writer intended it to be understood, they 
were indeed in 7norality all agreed. As to their 
unanimous desire of making men better, we can only 
say that they adopted the most singular means of 
effecting it. A Roman citizen, of the Augustan age, 
described them as those who, being past feeling , had 
given themselves over unto lasciviousness, to work all 
uncleanness with greediness,* 

* Among: the philosophers of the time of Cicero, the Cynics 
were held in great repute, and were widely spread through- 
out the Roman empire. The wise man of this school " gave 
up all human relations towards mankind ; contemned his 
country, his kindred, and the joys of wedded love, and 
sought his consolation in a self-complacent beastliness. One 
might see these beastly men half naked, moving about every 
where, with a great cudgel and a bread-bag, performing the 
animal necessities of their nature before the eyes of all ; 
thrusting themselves, with extreme rudeness, among the 
multitudes, and there stepping forward as teachers of wis- 
dom ; not in a regular discourse, but with abrupt and broken 
language of vulgar sport and derision." And yet even the 
New Platonic philosophers greatly revered Cynicism, and re- 
presented Diogenes, its leader, as a godlike num. 

Whoever may desire a more extended account of ancient, 
classic heathenism, in regard td its gross superstition, its 
disgusting sensuality, its obscene idols and ceremonies, its 
human sacrifices, its legalized cruelties, the odious vices of 
those who conformed to it, and its utter impotency for all 
purposes of moral improvement, is referred to an article, 
already quoted, on the Nature and Influence of Heathenism, 
by Prof, Tholuck, of Halle^ in Nos, vi. and vii. Biblical Re- 
pository y Andocer. 



300 LECTURE X. 

We have now exhibited some of the prominent 
features in the moral character of the society of 
Greece and Rome, in their most enlightened ages. 
From what has been stated, we may form a con- 
ception sufficiently accurate of the condition of 
things in all those departments of morality on 
which depends whatever is important to personal, 
domestic, and public happiness. We have been 
speaking of the most cultivated people of the ancient 
world. Unspeakably darker and more appalling 
would have been the picture, had we described the 
spirit, habits, and pervading crimes of any other 
pagan nations. But we are content that a fair re- 
presentation of the best, should also be received as 
a good likeness of the worst communities of ancient 
heathenism. 

We ask, what has become of all these deep-rooted 
deformities ? Look around upon the countries over 
which the influence of Christianity has been exerted ; 
those especially where the religion of Jesus has been 
enjoyed in the greatest purity, and cultivated with 
the truest devotion. Where are the remains of 
the abominations we have described ? Crime re- 
mains indeed ; but only in hidden dens. It shuns 
the light. Laws do not afford it countenance. 
Public sentiment drives it into concealment. What 
would the feeling of society now say to a show of 
gladiators ; to the legalized exposure of infants by 
the hands of mothers ; to the public, deliberate 
murder of worn-out slaves ; to the justification of 
suicide, and theft, and lying, and assassination, and 
the acknowledged practice of the most odious sen- 
suality, by those who are looked up to as the moral 
teachers and examples of society ? How would 
idolatry, with all its cruelties and obscenities ; its 
profligate deities ; its human sacrifices ; its hidden 
mysteries of iniquity ; and its public ritual of vice, 
afTect the public mind, were its temples^ and images, 



LECTURE X. 301 

and lascivious ceremonies now set up in our cities ? 
It is not enough to say, that in countries where all 
these abominations once rioted without restraint, and 
in full sympathy with the public taste, they have 
long since been driven away with abhorrence. Po- 
sitive blessings, in every form, and for every class of 
society, have risen up in their place. A measure of 
virtue which would have singled out an ancient phi- 
losopher as a wonderful exception to the rest of the 
world, is absolutely necessary at present to a cha- 
racter of ordinary decency. Benevolence-, such as 
was not known in Greece or Rome, and had it ap- 
peared, would not have been comprehended, is now 
a matter of common, daily intercourse between man 
and man. An incalculable improvement has been 
effected in all departments of human affairs, from 
the administration of national government down to 
the most retired relations of the family circle. What 
rulers would have been remarkable once for not doing, 
the people would now expel them for attempting. A 
spirit of equity, moderation, and respect for the 
interests and happiness of the community, is required 
in the governments of countries under the influence 
of Christianity, which was hardly conceived of by 
the nations of antiquity, and, if it ever appeared, 
was a marvellous exception to general rule. Laws, 
regenerated in their principles, are enacted in wis- 
dom, and executed with a faithfulness unknown to 
the heathen. Instead of the despotic harshness with 
which a father was once permitted to rule his chil- 
dren and his wife, as his tools and slaves ; universal 
sentiment demands it, as necessary even to decency, 
that he shall be kind to them as his own flesh, and 
as the rightful sharers in all his comforts. Women 
have been elevated from the rank of beasts of bur- 
den, to an equal participation in all the refinements 
and blessings of society. The condition of the de- 
pendent classes of the community has been raised 



302 LECTURE X. 

from that of contempt, and oppression, and utter 
ignorance, to a level, in point of natural right, with 
all; while education shines upon their dwellings, 
and religion seeks their souls, as worthy of all sacri- 
fices which christian benevolence can make for their 
salvation. 

Efforts to provide for the sick, the destitute, the 
orphan, the widow, were unknown among the an- 
cients. Rome, Athens, Corinth, contained no hos- 
pitals, no asylums, no public charities, no systems 
of gratuitous education. Such deeds of benevolence 
were impossible among a people who were accus- 
tomed to look upon all forms of human suffermg 
with indifference, and to derive enthusiastic arnuse- 
ment from their promotion. In vain are the writings 
of their moralists examined for exhortations to any 
thing like an active concern for the poor or the 
ignorant. An orphan child was no object of public 
compassion in countries where orphans were daily 
and deliberately made, and left to perish by cold- 
blooded abandonment on the part of their parents. 

But what new sympathies sprung up immediately 
where the Gospel prevailed ! It was made the 
duty of the whole christian community to provide 
for the stranger, the poor, the sick, the aged, the 
widow, and the orphan. For this one object, 
public contributions, at the time of divine service, 
were established, and private donations were mul- 
tiplied. How much such benevolence was insisted 
on, may be judged from a passage of TertuUian, 
where, speaking of the impediments which a chris- 
tian woman would encounter by marriage with a 
heathen, he says, '^ What heathen will suffer his 
wife, in visiting the brethren, to go from street to 
street, into strangers', and even into the most mise- 
rable cottages ? Who will suffer them to steal 
into prisons, to kiss the chains of martyrs? If a 
stranger- brother comes, what reception will he find 



LECTURE X. 303 

in a stranger's house ? If she has alms to bestow, 
the safe and the cellar are closed to her." 

What the Gospel effected, in promoting benevo- 
lence, and trampling down all the obstacles of self- 
ishness and fear, when good was hardly to be done 
but at the cost of life, may be seen from the follow- 
ing representation of Dionysius, bishop of Alexandria, 
who had an opportunity of observing the contrast 
between heathens and christians, when a terrible 
pestilence was raging in that city. '* That pesti- 
lence appeared to the heathen as the most dreadful 
of all things, as that which left them no hope ; not 
so, however, did it seem to us, but only a peculiar 
and practical trial. The greater part of our people, 
in the abundance of their brotherly love, did not 
spare themselves ; and mutually attending to each 
other, they would visit the sick without fear, and 
ministering to them for the sake of Christ, they 
would cheerfully give up their life with them. Many 
died, after their care had restored others from the 
disease to health. The best among our brethren, 
some priests and deacons, and some who were cele- 
brated among the laity, died in this manner; and 
such a death, the fruit of great piety and strong 
faith, is hardly inferior to martyrdom. Many who 
took the bodies of their christian brethren into theix 
hands and bosoms, closed their mouth and eyes, 
and buried them with every attention, soon followed 
them in death. But with the heathen, matters 
stood quite differently; at the first symptom of 
sickness, they drove a man from their society ; they 
tore themselves away from their dearest connections ; 
they threw the h.alf dead into the streets, and left 
the dead unburied ; endeavouring by all the means 
in their power to escape contagion, which, notwith- 
standing all their contrivances, it was very difficult 
for them to accomplish ►" 

^* In the same manner," writes Neander, from 



304 LECTURE X. 

whose church history the above is taken, '' the 
christians of Carthage let the light of their love 
and christian conduct shine before the heathen in a 
pestilence which visited North Africa a little before 
in the reign of Gallus. The heathen, out of 
cowardice, left the sick and the dying ; the streets 
were full of corpses, which no man dared to bury ; 
and avarice was the only passion which mastered the 
fear of death ; for wicked men endeavoured to make 
a gain out of the misfortunes of their neighbours : 
and the heathen accused the. christians of being the 
cause of this calamity, as enemies of the gods, in- 
stead of being brought by it to the consciousness ot 
their own guilt and corruption. But Cyprian re- 
quired of his church that they should behold, m this 
desolating pestilence, a trial of their dispositions. 
* How necessary is it, my dearest brethren,' he says 
to them, ' that this pestilence, which appears to bring 
horror and destruction, should prove the consciences 
of men 1 It will determine whether the healthy will 
take care of the sick, whether relations bear tender 
love one to another, and whether masters care for 
their sick servants.* That the christians should 
show a spirit of mutual love among themselves, was 
not sufficient to satisfy a bishop who formed his 
notions after the model of the great Shepherd. He 
therefore called his church together, and addressed 
them thus : * If we do good only to our own people, 
we do no more than publicans and heathens. But 
if we are the children of God, who makes his sun to 
shine and his rain to descend upon the just and the 
uniust; who sheds abroad his blessings, not on his 
own alone, but even upon those whose thoughts are 
far from him; we must show this by our actions, 
endeavouring to become perfect as our Father in 
heaven is perfect, and blessing those who curse, and 
doing good to tho&e who persecute us.* Encouraged 
by this paternal admonition, the members of the 



LECTURF X. 305 

church addressed themselves to the work ; the rich 
contributing money, and the poor their labour ; so 
that in a short time the streets were cleared of the 
corpses who filled them, and the city saved from the 
dang-ers of a universal pestilence."* 

That the spirit of primitive christians is still the 
characteristic spirit of Christianity, in regard to all 
works of charity, may easily be seen. Go where 
the Gospel has attained the greatest supremacy, and 
behold how every form of human misery is met by 
the self-denying diligence, and comforted by the 
munificence, of the benevolent. What conceivable 
method of removing distress, of preventing vice, 
and disseminating happiness, has not been put m 
operation ? The whole Roman empire had not one 
benevolent institution. The single city of London 
counts her three hundred! And why is so little 
said or thought of them, except that the public 
mind has become so accustomed to the noblest 
efforts of benevolence, that they are now regarded 
almost as matters of course — the natural conse- 
quence of prevailing principles of brotherly kind- 
ness and charity ? 

It is not my design to exhibit any thing like a full- 
length portrait of the contrast between the civili- 
zation of modern, and that of ancient nations. It 
is seen in all the relations of life ; in the whole fabric 
of society, from the government of the family, to 
that of the state; from the tender cares of the cradle 
and the mother, to the wide concerns of communities 
and rulers. Every thing has felt the change. 
Though not perfect, it is immense. Much remains 
to be done, but mighty improvements have been 
effected. Were the whole work undone ; should 
the sun, which now enlightens the moral world, be 
commanded to go back, and suffer the classic pagan- 
ism of Greece and Rome to resume its sway ; every 
* Rose's Translation of Neauder's Ch. Historv. 

X 



306 LECTURE X. 

joint in the mechanism of society would groan with > 
pain ; every corner in the household of civilized 
beings would be filled with darkness ; the transition 
from'^the arts and literature of England to those of 
Hottentots or New Zealanders, would not be greater 
than such a change from the moral elevation of the 
present age, to the highest refinements of the purest 
nations of antiquity. 

Such is the fact. It remains to be accounted 
for. What produced this change ? The religion of 
ancient heathens pleads ** not guilt?/' to the charge. 
It had no reference to morals. The vilest crimes 
and the highest repute for piety were perfectly con- 
sistent with each other, among heathens of the^ 
Augustan age. It was no part of the business of 
their priests to teach men virtue. No religion but 
that of the Bible ever possessed or aimed at the 
power of reformation. Equally clear are the lite- 
rature, and philosophy, and arts of antiquity, from 
the imputation of this mighty revolution. Never 
did they prevail so extensively among the heathen^ 
as in the first century of Christianity ; and never 
were they accompanied with such moral degradation. 
Philosophy had as little disposition, as ability to re- 
form. Whatever light it may have possessed, it 
monopolized; holding its truth in unrighteousness, 
and studiously conforming its practice to the worst 
abominations. " Cicero declares that the ancient 
philosophers never reformed either themselves or 
their disciples ; and that he knew not a single in- 
stance in which either the teacher or the disciple was 
made virtuous by their principles."* 

* D wight on Infidel Philosophy. 

" In their writings and conversation, the philosophers of 
antiquity asserted the independent dignity of reason ; but 
they resigned their actions to the commands of law and cus- 
tom. Viewing with a smile of pity and indulgence the 
\arious errors of the vulgar, they diligently practised the 



LECTURE X. 307 

But it may be supposed that, without any other 
cause than its own natural fluctuation, the moral 
condition of ancient nations may have taken a change, 
like the tides of the ocean, and begun to rise from 
the mere fact of being reduced to so low an ebb. 
Answer this by the present state of those nations 
that continued under the native influence of pagan- 
ism. In which of them was such a thing ever known, 
as a reformation of public morals ? Their unvaried 
history, from the days of Moses to the present, set- 
tles the matter, that heathenism has no power, but 
of progressive corruption ; and, left to itself, can 
only reduce its votaries mto deeper and deeper de- 
basement. Then, if the vast improvement in ques- 
tion is neither the consequence of the religion, nor 
the philosophy, nor the arts, nor the literature, nor 
of any natural reaction in the moral state of the 
ancient heathen ; to what other cause must it be 
assigned ? History has but one answer. Reason 
has but one answer. Christianity alone, single- 
handed, persecuted Christianity, by the agency of 
twelve obscure Jews, began the wonderful change, 
and, under the favour of God, has accomplished its 
every step of advancement. Till such a thing as 
the religion of Christ appeared in the world, a re- 
formation of heathen society was never dreamed of. 



ceremonies of their fathers, devoutly frequented the temples 
of the gods ; and, sometimes condescending to act a part on 
the theatre of superstition, they concealed the sentiments of 
an atheist under the sacerdotal robes. It was indifferent to 
them what shape the folly of the multitude might choose to 
assume ; and they approached, with the same inward con- 
tempt and the same external reverence, the altars of the 
Libyan, the Olympian, or the Capitoline Jupiter." — Gibbon*s 
History, i. 34. 

A sorry tribute, by a philosopher, to the benevolence and 
honesty of his ancient brethren. Paul would have^drawn 
their picture vrith a darker pencil still. His Master would 
have named them " hypocrites,'* '^ ivhited sepulchres,** 

X 2 



308 LECTURE X. 

Till Christians appeared among the Gentiles, none 
had ever adventured, none v^ere ever disposed, to 
labour for the improvement of mankind. Christian 
writers were the first that dared to drag the abomi- 
nations of classic antiquity to light, and brand them 
with the condemnation of truth and righteousness. 
The first christian emperor issued the first prohi- 
bition of inhuman practices and amusements, which 
many centuries had sanctioned. Till the Gospel 
set up its churches and gathered its disciples, the 
Gentile world had never seen such a spectacle as 
that of a society united by bands of love, shining 
in the beauty of holiness, animated with zeal to do 
good at the expense of self-denial and sacrifice. 

How exclusively the happy effects of which we 
have been speaking are the fruit of Christianity, is 
evident from the fact, that, when you take up a map 
of the world, and mark out the boundaries of Chris- 
tendom, you mark also the boundaries of all civiliza- 
tion and refinement; that as you approach the regions 
where the Bible is best known and most obeyed, you 
perceive a rapid increase of all the virtues, and 
charities, and blessings, of which the society of man 
is capable ; that the highest elevation of the human 
character is where Christianity reigns in her purest 
form, and the blackest page in the history of Chris- 
tendom, the page most polluted with vice, and red 
with cruelty and murder, is the record of the people 
who trampled down the institutions of the Gospel, 
decreed the living God out of existence, and at- 
tempted to raise the deities of ancient paganism from 
the dead. That many individuals who deny the 
truth, and profess to be free from the influence of 
Christianity, are decent men, and far removed from 
the condition of the heathen in point of moral pre- 
cept as well as practice, is no evidence against our 
position. The light of Christianity is all about tliem^ 
AvA they cannot help seeing by its aid. They have 



LECTURE X. 309 

learned christian truth from their childhood, and it 
cannot be unlearned. Do what they may, they can- 
not think or act without its influence. They may 
boast the sufficiency of their own reason, but they 
can no more exercise their reason without the aid of 
revelation, than they can breathe the air of spring 
without the fragrance of its flowers. '* On all ques- 
tions of morality and religion, the streams of thought 
have flowed through channels enriched with a celes- 
tial ore, whence they have derived the tincture to 
which they are indebted for their rarest and most 
salutary qualities."* What a community of deists, 
would be without Christianity, can only be known 
by remembering what deists were before christi'anity 
came into the world; and what they became, when 
in France they supposed they had almost banished 
her from the earth. 

How remarkable are the confessions of infidels to 
the excellent fruit and indispensable influence of the 
Gospel ! Bolingbroke acknowledges, ** that Con- 
stantine acted the part of a sound politician in pro- 
tecting Christianity, as it tended to give firmness 
and solidity to his empire, softened the ferocity of 
the army, and reformed the licentiousness of the 
provmces, and by infusing a spirit of moderation 
and submission to government, tended to extinguish 
those principles of avarice and ambition, injustice 
and violence, by which so many factions were 
formed.'' " No religion,'' says the same opposer of 
Christianity, *' ever appeared in the world whose 
natural tendency was so much directed to promote 
the peace and happiness of mankind. It makes 
right reason a law, in every possible definition of the 
word. And therefore, even supposing it to have 
been purely a human invention, it had been the most 
amiable and the most useful invention that was ever 
imposed on mankind for their good." Thus even 

* Robert Hall. 



310 LECTURE X. 

Rousseau : *' If all were perfect christians, indi- 
viduals would do their duty ; the people would be 
obedient to the laws; the magistrates incorrupt; and 
there would be neither vanity nor luxury in such a 
state." Such are the confessions of many other 
writers of the same class. And yet these men would 
run the ploughshare through the foundations of the 
church of Christ, so that one stone should not be left 
upon another ! So much for the consistency, the vir- 
tue, and disinterested benevolence of infidelity ; or 
rather, so much for the contradiction between its head 
and its heart, its convictions and its vices. 

I know of nothing, in the way of fact, more 
strikingly illustrative of the legitimate fruits of Chris- 
tianity — more completely in proof that all the social 
and moral blessings which civilized nations at pre- 
sent enjoy, are to be ascribed to her influence ; and 
that what she once was, as a tree of life to the 
nations, she is now, and ever will be — than the his- 
tory of the missions among the heathen, which pro- 
testant christians are now sustaining. Here we have 
experiments of her power in all climates, over all 
habits and dispositions, and with all classes of mind. 
She has gone in among the ice-bound inhabitants of 
Greenland, whose intellect was as slow, and sleepy, 
and creeping, as the seals they lived on ; and whose 
hearts were as barren and cold as their perpetual 
snows. She has entered among the inhabitants of 
the southern extreme of Africa, the Hottentots, the 
very lowest gradation of human nature, whose souls 
were supposed to be as incapable of enlightening 
and enlargement as the instincts of the vermin that 
covered them. She has tried her powers among 
the ferocious tribes of American Indians; upon 
warriors nourished with blood, and breathing a spi- 
rit of slaughter which no sufferings nor dangers 
could ever tame. She has lifted up her voice in the 
islands of the Pacific, among savages, uniting with 



LECTURE X. 311 

the most inhuiiian idolatry, the most beastly vices 
and unnatural cruelties ; and from all this hetero- 
geneous display of unsl;iapen depravity, by the mere 
influence of her truth and love, she has led forth a 
multitude of disciples for the Lord Jesus, in which 
are found precisely the same distinctive features of 
meekness, humility, love, and holiness. Look at 
the Sandwich or the Society Islands I Within our 
own times they were universally pagan, having no 
altars but those of daemons ; no law, but that of 
violence ; no morals, but those of unbridled passion. 
Theft was the most national art. Polygamy ; crimes 
against nature ; the murder of prisoners taken in 
war ; the destruction of irifants, and the sacrificing 
of human victims — prevailed throughout their popu- 
lation. What is the change ! Where are now 
their idols? In the museums of our missionary 
societies, as trophies of the victories of the Cross ; 
or cast " to the moles and the bats*' by those who 
once adored them. The whole plan and mould of 
society has been recast. Laws, wisely enacted and 
well administered, keep the peace, and promote im- 
provements. Crimes of all kinds are obliged to 
cease, or go into concealment. Marriage has given 
parents new affection for their children, and their 
children new ties among each other. Benevolence, 
unknown before, has awakened a desire to go about 
doing good. The sabbath is reverenced, and widely 
kept for rest and worship. The arts of peace are 
cultivated, where formerly the only art desired was 
that of war. The march of civilization is visible in 
all domestic comforts and private affairs ; in agri- 
culture, commerce, buildings, cleanHness, dress, 
manners, and government. Schools are spread 
through the islands, and education is eagerly sought 
by a large proportion of the people of all ages and 
classes. Such are the fruits of Christianity in our day. 
Nothing else could have produced such fruits. Just 



312 LECTURE X. 

after infidelity bad given the world a full-length 
portrait, in the French revolution, of her power to 
tear down, and tear in pieces, and drown in blood, 
whatever is lovely and of good report ; then Chris- 
tianity set out, on the opposite side of the world, to 
furnish a striking contrast, in the missions of the 
Pacific, of her benign influence to exterminate what- 
ever is odious and depraved.* 

* It is well known to the author, that travellers and voy- 
agers not unfrequently bring back reports of the effects of 
missionary labours in the regions they have visited, which 
stagger the minds of many sincere friends of foreign mis- 
sions. The accounts of what those honoured and devoted 
servants of Christ, called missionaries, are doing, and of the 
advances which the Gospel is making under their influence, 
may all be true ; much more than they relate, may be true ; 
and yet it is very conceivable, yea, natural, that such men 
as our ordinary visitors of foreign lands should return from 
those regions, having neither seen nor heard any thing of the 
matter. Suppose a missionary were accomplishing, with 
his schools and his preaching, among a tribe of Indians m 
the centre of the state of New York, about as much as is 
reported of the American labourers in the island of Ceylon ; 
how long might an intelligent traveller, with no interest in 
religion, no relish for its intelligence, no love for the society 
of its disciples, no knowledge of its journals— a man of 
fashion and gaiety, mingling only with the literary and the 
worldly-minded ; how long might he reside in the fashion- 
able circles of the city of New York, and sail up the Hud- 
son, and stop at Saratog-a, and visit Niagara, and yet know 
absolutely nothing of that diligent missionary and his 
usefulness ? Men who have lived all their days in a city 
which abounds in religious institutions and christian labours, 
without having become sufficiently informed to give a 
stranger a correct account even of their respective charac- 
ters, much less of their real usefulness, will touch at a port 
in the Sandwich islands, see the port population, go no fur- 
ther than the coast, inquire of none but the ungodly, and 
then come home, and report that the missionaries have done 
nothing to civilize or convert the people ! How should such 
men know? On Iheir principles of judging, it might be 
reported, with equal reason, that Christianity has secured 
no influence, and done no good, in the city of New York ! 
An anecdote will illustrate how such authorities deserve to 



LECTURE X. 313 

Not only has the religion of the Gospel produced 
such fruits, but the experiment of 1800 years is 
perfect proof, that in proportion as it shall ever be 
possessed in native soundness, and have room and 

be regarded. A gentleman, not long since, returned to his 
native city in England, after having spent some three or 
four years in India. The pious people of his acquaintance 
(not considering the extent of the Indies, and his indifference 
to the cause of Christ) supposed that of course he had seen 
the missionary stations, and knew by his own observation 
all about the reported progress of religion in that country. 
They inquired of him the state of things in this respect. 
He assured them that the accounts they had read of mis- 
sionary doings and successes in the East had no foundation, 
were mere traps to get contributions. He had been in 
India, and travelled extensively, and had seen nothing of 
any inroads upon heathenism, nor any changes among the 
people : had scarcely heard of the existence of missionary 
stations. The people were amazed! Much harm was 
doing ; when a clergyman of the place, hearing of the mat- 
ter, took an opportunity of conversing with the traveller. 
Before disclosing his object, he said to him, " You are pro- 
bably familiar with the national school system of instruction 
in this country. What do you think of it f " Why no," 
answered the traveller, " I really am not acquainted with 
it/' " But you doubtless know that there is such a sys- 
tem, and have probably seen its establishments, and heard 
much of its usefulness." " Why no, I have never happened 
to do so, though I have an indistinct idea of the existence 
of such a system." " Well," said the clergyman, " I will tell 
you. The national school system has been established for 
several years in England. Its schools are all over the 
country ; its pupils are many hundreds of thousands ; its 
influence is universally felt. It maintains more than one 
school in your immediate neighbourhood. Almost all your 
life has been spent in England, a small country, and yet you 
know nothing of these interesting facts. You have been a 
short time in the immense region of India, over which a few 
missionary stations are scattered, as drops upon a desert ; 
and because, in visiting a few prominent places, you heard 
or saw nothing of their influence upon the millions of hea- 
then, you would persuade us that what we have read is all 
untrue. How much more should we believe that the 
national school system is a fable I" The traveller was 
jBilenced ; the people were satisfied. 



3]4 LECTURE X. 

freedom to spread its roots and extend its branches, 
it will continue to bear such fruit, more and more 
abundantly and perfectly, to the end of time. This 
tree of life was planted, to live through all ages, 
and spread its shadow over all nations. The trials 
it stood in its infancy, the fierce assaults of every 
species of enmity, which in every age of its subse- 
quent growth have endeavoured in vain to destroy 
it, are evidences that, as no human power could 
have thus protected it, so no human opposition 
can hereafter prevent its increase ; that it must 
grow, and spread, and blossom, till time shall be no 
more. 

1 am well aware, and I desire not to conceal, 
that it is very common with infidels to ascribe wars, 
intrigues, bloodshed, and persecutions, to the influ- 
ence of Christianity, and to assert that the world has 
been covered with slaughter by the hand of the 
Gospel. The truth is, that whenever any evils, such 
las wars or persecutions, arise, though infidels by 
profession, or mere nominal christians, are at the 
bottom of them ; though originated and carried on 
out of direct enmity to the Gospel ; yet, because 
the christian name is involved in the contest, infidels 
set down the whole to the account of a religion, 
which, nevertheless, their chief men confess, has a 
direct tendency to make every body do his duty* 
and ^' to promote the peace and happiness of man- 
kind.*' f But on the other hand, whenever any 
good is done in society, such as the banishment of 
the crimes and vices of heathenism ; the promotion 
of virtue, peace, good laws, good institutions, bene- 
volence, domestic and public happiness ; then in- 
fidels have great difficulty in seeing how these 
blessings are connected with Christianity, even 
though, by their own acknowledgment, the life of 
Jesus ** showed at once what excellent creatures 
* Rousseau. t Bolingbroke. 



LECTURE X. 315 

men would be, when under the influence and power 
of that Gospel which he preached,''"^ 

It is freely granted that in countries called chris- 
tian, great evils remain to be cured ; their history 
abounds with wars, some of which have been on 
account of the christian religion, and have been 
accompanied with gi*eat slaughter and lasting enmi- 
ties. But before these deplorable facts can justly 
be attributed to the influence of the peaceful and 
gentle religion of Jesus, a number of important 
questions, which we shall presently name, must be 
decided. By the confession of one of the most 
noted infidels, '' We have in Christ an example of 
one who was just, honest, upright, and sincere, and, 
above all, of a most gracious and benevolent temper 
and behaviour. One who did no wrong, no injury 
to any man ; in whose mouth was no guile ; who 
went about doing good, not only by his ministry, 
but also in curing all manner of diseases among 
the people. His life showed what excellent crea- 
tures men would be, when under the influence and 
power of that Gospel which he preached unto 
them."t But hear on this head the eloquence of 
the profligate Rousseau, venturing for once to speak 
the truth • *' I will confess that the majesty of the 
Scriptures strikes me with admiration, as the purity 
of the Gospel has its influence on my heart. Peruse 
the works of our philosophers, with all their pomp 
of diction; how contemptible are they, compared 
with the Scriptures ! Is it possible that a book at 
once so simple and sublime should be merely the 
work of man ? Is it possible that the sacred perso- 
nage whose name it records, should be himself a 
mere man ? What sweetness, what purity in his 
manner ! What sublimity in his maxims ! What 
profound wisdom, in his discourses ! Where is the 
man, where the philosopher, who could so live and 

* Chubb's True Gospel, § viii. 65, 5G. t Ibid. 56, 57. 



316 LECTURE X. 

SO die, without weakness and without ostentation ? 
If the life and death of Socrates were those of a 
sage, the life and death of Jesus were those of a 
God.'' Such are the confessions of a man whose 
vice and vanity constrained him to say, ** / cannot 
believe the GospeV No wonder, when at the same 
time he was saying in his heart, / will not renounce 
my debaucheries. 

But such confessions abound in the writings of 
infidels, so that '' the whole christian argument 
might be maintained on the admissions of one or 
other of the leading infidel writers ; and no contest re- 
main, unless, if it could thenbe calledone, with the mi- 
serable, ignorant ferocity of Paine and his associates."* 

On the ground of such acknowledgments, and of 
the acquaintance which any who ever read the New 
Testament must have with its principles and ten- 
dency, let the following questions be answered : Is 
there any tendency in the principles of the Gospel 
to the enkindling of strife, hatred, war, or blood- 
shed ? Was the character of its Founder— were the 
characters of the apostles and primitive christians, 
among whom the native influence of Christianity was 
most unequivocally exhibited — in any manner indi- 
cative of such a tendency in its principles ? Is not 
the whole history of the ^purest ages of the Gospel, 
as well as every page in the New Testament, di- 
rectly in proof of the very opposite effect? Did 
not all the evils of war and national dissension 
prevail much more universally before the establish- 
ment of Christianity, than they have done since ? 
Is not the influence of this religion plainly visible 
in mitigating those horrors of war which she has 
not exterminated? And as to those which have 
continued to subsist, are they in direct consequence, 
or in spite, of her influence ; the fruit of the tree, 
or the poisonous weeds at its root, which oppose its 

* Wilson's Lectures. 



LECTURE X. 317 

growth ? Are the men who have been concerned 
in promoting these evils, and who are called chris- 
tians, believed to have been real christians ? Do 
not infidels discriminate sufficiently between genuine 
and nominal religion, to understand that, in thus 
acting, they were departing from the principles of 
the Gospel, and proving that they were christians 
but in name ? '' Have not the courts of princes, 
notwithstanding Christianity may have been the pro- 
fessed religion of the land, been generally attended 
by a far greater proportion of deists than of serious 
christians ; and have not public measures been 
directed by the counsels of the former, much more 
than by those of the latter ? It is well known that 
great numbers among the nobility and gentry of 
every nation consider religion as suited only to 
vulgar minds ; and therefore either wholly absent 
themselves from public worship, or attend but 
seldom, and then only to save appearances towards 
a national establishment. In other words, they are 
unbelievers. This is the description of men by 
which public affairs are commonly managed, and 
to which the good or the evil pertaining to them, 
so far as human agency is concerned, is to be 
attributed."* 

It is a favourite manoeuvre with infidels to charge 
Christianity with all the persecutions on account of 
religion, and, at the same time, to speak in high 
terms of '* the mild tolerance of the ancient 
heathens;" of '' the universal toleration of poly- 
theism;'' of ^' the Roman princes beholding without 
concern a thousand forms of religion subsisting in 
peace under their gentle sway/'f Better informa- 
tion on this subject is greatly needed in the com- 
munity. Heathen toleration was any thing but 
virtuous, and much less universal than its modern 
eulogists would represent. It allowed all nations 
* Fuller^s Gospel its Own Witness. t Gibbon. 



318 LECTURE X. 

to establish whatever description of religion they 
pleased, provided each would acknowledge that 
all, in their several spheres, were equally good. 
But pagan nations required of every citizen con- 
formity to the national idolatries. This yielded, 
he might believe, and be, whatever he pleased. 
This denied, immediately toleration ceased. Take 
a few examples. Stilpo was banished Athens, for 
affirming that the statue of Minerva, in the citadel, 
was no divinity, but only the work of the chisel of 
Phidias, Protagoras received a similar punishment 
for this single sentence : " Whether there be gods 
or not, I have nothing to offer.*' Prodicus and his 
pupil, Socrates, suffered death for opinions at vari- 
ance with the established idolatry of Athens. Alci- 
biades and iEschylus narrowly escaped a like end 
for a similar cause. Plato dissembled his opinions ; 
and Aristotle fled his country, under the lash of the 
mild and universal toleration of the Grecian my^ 
thology. Cicero lays it down as a principle of legis-^ 
lation entirely conformable to the rights of the 
Roman state, that '* no man shall have separate 
gods for himself; and no man shall worship by him- 
self new or foreign gods, unless they have been 
publicly acknowledged by the laws of the state."* 
The speech, in Dion Cassius, which Msecenas is said 
to have made to Augustus, may be considered a fair 
index of the prevailing sentiment of that polished 
age. " Honour the gods," says Msecenas, '* by all 
means, according to the customs of your country, 
and force others so to honour them. But those who 
are for ever introducing something foreign in these 
matters, hate and punish, not only for the sake of 
the gods, but also because they who introduce new 
divinities mislead many others into receiving foreign 
laws also. Suffer no man either to deny the gods, 
or to practise sorcery." Julius Paulus, the Roman 

* De Legibus, ii. 8. 



LECTURE X. 319 

civilian, gives the following as a leading feature of 
Roman law : ^* Those who introduced new religions, 
or such as were unknown in their tendency and 
nature, by which the minds of men might be agi- 
tated, were degraded if they belonged to the higher 
ranks, and, if they were in a lower state, were 
punished with death." Under this legislation, 
many of the governors endeavoured to compromise 
with Christians, by allowing them to believe and 
honour what they pleased in their hearts, provided 
they would observe outwardly the religious cere- 
monies ordained by the state.* 

Examples to the same effect, might be greatly 
multiplied. 1 have furnished enough to show in 
what sense the heathen princes " beheld, without 
concern, a thousand forms of religion subsisting in 
peace under their gentle sway ;" and how far Vol- 
taire was accurately informed, or honestly disposed, 
when boasting that the ancient Romans ** never 
persecuted a single philosopher for his opinions, 
from the time of Romulus till the popes got posses- 
sion of their power.*' 

It is willingly conceded, that persecutions on ac- 
count of religion were enormously increased imme- 
diately after the promulgation of Christianity; in- 
asmuch as nothing had ever before attacked the 
superstitions and vices of the heathen with her 
undaunted, uncompromising spirit. But did Chris- 
tianity persecute ; or was she the object of perse- 
cution? Was Jesus the persecutor of Pilate ? Did 
Paul persecute the worshippers of the Ephesian 
Diana, or the heathen of Iconium, or those who 
stoned him at Lvstra ? Bv whose intolerance was 
it, that, for three hundred years, the christian 
church was continually overflowed with the blood 
of her martyrs ? Did the multitudes who perished 
for Christ's sake, under the paw of the lion, and 
* See Neander's Church Historj'^. 



320 LECTURE X. 

the sword of the gladiator, and the screws of the 
rack— did they persecute the heathen priests, and 
people, and magistrates— Nero, and Trajan, and 
Diocletian— with their proconsuls, and governors, 
and executioners? I grant, that in the lapse of 
centuries the guilt of persecution did attach to the 
church. Christian powers, and ministers, and peo- 
ple have, in various ages, been justly liable to this 
lamentable charge. But who does not know that 
the church, before ever she began to persecute, 
had manifestly degenerated from the purity of the 
Gospel, and become deeply poisoned with the spint 
of the world, having her chief places occupied by 
such men as infidels know: were not influenced 
by vital Christianity ?* Who is so blind as not to 
see that wherever such evils have existed among 
any people called Christians, they have been be- 
cause those people had so little of the spuit of the 
Gospel, and not because they had any of it ? They 
have been directly the reverse of the religion pro- 
fessed by such persons; the fruits of their own native 
dispositions, combined with the character of the ages 
they lived in, assimilating them thus far to infidels, 
who have always been persecutors in proportion to 
their power. True Christianity desires and needs no 
effort of secular power to advance her cause. She 
asks but one favour : liberty to preach the word. 
Her whole dependence is on '' the demonstration of 
the Spirit.'' " God giveth the increase,'' 

We have now applied to Christianity the test by 
which she claims to be proved ; one universally 
employed as safe, and approved as just ; the tree is 

* The emperor Julian acknowledged that persecutions 
were the inyentions of the later Christians; that neither 
Je£us, nor Paul, nor any other of the first preachers of the 
Gospel, had taught men to kill others tor being of a different 
religion, or for differing about lesser matters among them^ 
selves. — Lurdnery iv. 337. 



LECTURE X. 321 

fifiown by its fruits. The religion of the Gospel 
we have seen coming into the world at a period 
when every moral evil abounded. The grossest 
idolatry, attended with the most inhuman and in* 
decent rites, prevailed among the most enlightened 
nations. Spectacles of slaughter and suffering 
constituted the public amusements. Parents with- 
out natural affection, children in slavery to their 
parents and at the mercy of their displeasure, the 
female sex degraded to a rank of servile inferiority, 
murders and cruelties characterized the age. Vices 
of the most beastly kind were practised and avowed 
in the highest and most influential classes of society. 
What would now shame out of the world the most 
degraded of mankind, could then be acknowledged, 
even by a public teacher of morals, without reproach. 
Public opinion, the thermometer of public virtue, 
had no condemnation for habits not only against all 
the securities of domestic happiness and social wel- 
fare, but against every dictate of nature, and requir- 
ing for their permission the lowest debasement of 
the moral sense of the community. Among all the 
Gentile nations, none possessed the benevolence to 
attempt, nothing had power to effect, the reforma- 
tion of a world thus sunk in wretchedness, and 
paralyzed with vice. It was the era, indeed, of the 
world's wisdom ; but of a wisdom by which the 
world knew not God. For centuries, had the wise 
men after the flesh been teaching, and writing, and 
boasting; and as long had every wo been increasing, 
and every school becoming more perplexed in its 
doctrines, and more abandoned in the practice of its 
disciples. No change, for the better, was hoped for 
from any human source. Then appeared " the wis- 
dom of God." Christianity, uninvited, unwelcomed, 
rejected — Christianity^ persecuted as intrusive, de- 
spised as foolishness, ridiculed as weakness — com- 
menced at this crisis the bold work of regenerating 



322 LECTURE X. 

the world. Wherever she gained acceptation, the 
face of society was renewed. Order, purity, bene- 
volence, justice, mercy, every personal, domestic, 
and public virtue increased as her influence ex- 
tended. Under her charge, immense communities 
of men and women were formed, who soon became 
famous in the world for their earnest self-denying 
benevolence, and their devotion to holiness. No 
sooner was Christianity professed by the rulers of the 
Roman empire, than idolatry, with every unnatural 
crime and cruel amusement, was abolished from 
society, or compelled to deny its existence. In pro- 
portion as this religion has reigned in any age or 
country, there has been a manifest increase of all the 
blessings of civilization, all the arts of peace, all the 
virtues of individual character, all the securities of a 
wise and equitable government. Nothing has re- 
tarded the growth of these benefits, but what has 
alike retarded the progress of Christianity. No 
christian people have suffered on account of any 
evil, which Christianity has not directly opposed. 
Present efforts to spread this holy religion among 
the heathen demonstrate that her natural force is 
not abated, nor her influence changed. What she 
did among the pagans of the first, she is accomphsh- 
ing, though as yet by slower steps, among those of 
the nineteenth century. Such has been from the 
beginning; such is now ; and such, we have every 
reason to believe, ever will be the fruit of Christianity. 
By this she is known. By this let her claims to truth 
and to a divine original be judged. Every honest 
mind is capable of appreciating the evidence, and of 
applying the law. It is a case by itself. No party 
appears, to claim the credit of what Christianity 
ascribes to herself. Philosophy and the light of 
nature are joined to their idols and vices, and can- 
not come to the trial, and must therefore be excused. 
Infidelity was tried during the " reign of terror" in 



LECTURE X. 323 

France, and received its sentence at the guillotine, 
and therefore cannot come. Either the blessings we 
have described must be adjudged, according to the 
plea, to the Gospel of Christ, or pronounced to be 
effects without a cause. Do they belong to the 
Gospel, or to nothing ? We speak the language of 
every conscience and of all common sense when we 
say, the Gospel alone produced them, and the Gospel 
alone could produce them; and should the Gospel be 
thoroughly conformed to in all the world, the whole 
world would be morally renovated, and all those 
physical evils which proceed from the vices of man- 
kind would pass away. 

What, then, is Christianity? *' Do men gather 
grapes of thorns, or iigs of thistles ?" " Can a cor- 
rupt tree bring forth good fruit?'' This religion is 
either a truth or a fable ; the revelation of God, of 
the wicked and blasphemous contrivance of man. 
If it be the work of human contrivance, it must 
be unspeakably offensive to God, inasmuch as it 
ascribes all its doctrines directly to His teaching; 
exalts its Founder to the dignity of the divine na- 
ture, calling him the Son of God, and making him 
equal to the Father in power and glory. Between 
its entire truth as a divine revelation, and its un- 
paralleled audacity and impiety as a human impos- 
ture, there can be no middle ground. The unbe- 
liever, in rejecting the former, must resort, if con- 
sistent, to the latter. Then let us see how much 
he is bound to believe, in maintaining his position. 
He must believe that since the truth, according to 
his views, does not reside in Christianity, it does re- 
side in some or all of the systems of religion, or of 
philosophy, or of infidelity, to which Christianity is 
opposed. His creed, therefore, is substantially the 
following; * I believe that in proportion as the world 
has ever been committed to the influence of those 
antichristian systems among which the truth is to 

y2 



324 LECTURE X. 

be found ; it has been continually increasing in all 
moral degeneracy, having in it no spirit nor power 
of reformation. I believe, also, that in proportion 
as Christianity, which should be regarded only as a 
human contrivance of the grossest blasphemy and 
impiety, has reigned in the hearts and lives of men ; 
the world has been morally renovated, society hu- 
manized, benevolence invigorated, personal and 
public happiness extended and purified. Conse- 
quently, I believe that a God infinitely wise, holy, 
and true, has so constituted mankind, that, for the 
improvement and well-being of society, we are un- 
der the necessity of believing and promoting what 
is not only false, but heinously offensive to Himself; 
truth must be concealed because we learn by ex- 
perience that its currency can only be accompanied 
with the greatest evils to the morals, the peace, the 
whole interest of mankind ; teachers of error and 
darkness must be depended upon as instruments of 
human elevation, while teachers of the truth should 
be discountenanced as capable of nothing but the 
unhinging of the whole frame-work of private and 
public welfare.' These, I say, are the articles of 
belief which, whether avowed or not, lie wrapped 
up in the rejection of Christianity. The proof of 
this assertion is in the lecture we are now closing. 
I need not say that it sets, in strong and shmmg 
relief, the truth of the Gospel of our Lord Jesus 
Christ, as a revelation from Him who is the giver of 
every good and perfect gift. '' For the preaching 
of the cross is to them that perish foolishness : but 
unto us which are saved it is the power of God. 
Where is the wise? Where is the disputer of this 
world ? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of 
this world? For after that, in the wisdom of God, 
the world by wisdom knew not God, it pleased God 
by the foolishness of preaching to save them that 
believe; for the Jews require a sign, and the Greeks 



LECTURE XI. 325 

seek after wisdom : but we preach Christ crucified, 
unto the Jews a stumbling-block, and unto the 
Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, 
both Jews and Greeks, Christ, the power of God and 
the wisdom of God."* 



LECTURE XI. 

THE FRUITS OF CHRISTIANITY. 

The rule by which Christianity was tried in our last 
lecture, is as philosophical as it is scriptural. It is 
the rule of experiment, in distinction from all the 
whims of conjecture and ingenious theory, and has 
an application, as legitimate and conclusive, to the 
character of Christianity, as to that of any tree, or 
food, or medicine. None can deny that the experi- 
ment of the religion of Christ has been varied suffi- 
ciently to put it to the fairest trial, and continued 
long enough to develop its most hidden qualities. 
Exposed to all extremes of physical and moral tem- 
perature ; tried upon all descriptions of human 
beings ; required to preserve its purity amidst all 
contagions; to display its energies under all con- 
ceivable burdens and bonds ; to bear its fruit under 
the most blasting influences ; and to stand against 
all possible combinations of enmity ; sometimes sub- 
je<cted to the action of the fire, then of the rack, 
and then of the knife, of unrelenting persecutors ; 
eighteen hundred years have measured out its trial, 
during which, whatever could be eiFected by science 
united with industry, malice united with power, or 
vigilance united with hypocrisy, has been done un- 
ceasingly, to torture it into a confession or a display 
of something at variance with divine original. The 
trial, therefore, is sufficient. The tree has had time 

* 1 Cor. i. 18^24. 



326 LECTURE XI. 

and ample opportunity to be known by its fruits. 
If it may not be finally tried by this rule, in the 
nineteenth century of its budding and bearing, the 
fault must be sought in the rule itself, not in the 
subject of inquiry. 

In our last lecture we confined our attention to 
the fruits of Christianity in regard to society in 
general. In the present we are to consider 

Its fruits in regard to the character and 
happiness of its genuine disciples. 

It is not without reflection that I introduce this 
subject into the department of external evidence. 
I am aware that it is generally considered as be- 
longing exclusively to the class of arguments deno- 
minated internal ; but I see not with what propriety. 
So far as any effects of Christianity on individual 
disciples are incapable of being brought under the 
observation of others, being confined to the inward 
experience of the true believer, they are unques- 
tionably internal in their character, and do not 
belong to our present department. But if they be 
such effects as witnesses can take knowledge of; if 
the proof of them may be seen and appreciated by 
those that are without, and who can look only on 
the outward appearance ; I see not but they belong, 
as appropriately, to the external evidence, as any of 
the effects of Christianity upon society at large. 
Without further vindication of a matter of mere 
classification, I proceed. 

I. The moral transformations which the Gospel, 
in all ages, has notoriously wrought, and by un- 
questionable proofs exhibited to the world, in the 
characters of those who have become its genuine 
disciples, cannot be accounted for, but on the 
supposition of a divine power accompanying its 
operation. 

To illustrate my meaning, let me describe what 
has been witnessed under the ministry of Christianity 



LECTURE XI. 327 

SO repeatedly, that hardly any who have been in 
the way of such things can have failed to become 
acquainted with apposite examples. Persons of all 
grades of society and of intellect, and of all degrees 
of enmity to the religion of Jesus ; in circumstances 
the most unpropitious to its influence on their hearts; 
even while they were filled with the spirit of malice 
and persecution against its truth and disciples ; 
have had their minds suddenly arrested by some 
simple expression of the Bible, or some unpretend- 
ing statement of christian doctrine or experience ; 
perhaps it dropped from the lips of a minister, 
against whom, at that very time, they were nerved 
with anger ; or was read in a Bible, or a little 
despised tract, that seemed accidentally to lie in 
their way, and at which, as if by accident, they 
condescended to look. It told them nothing new ; 
nothing but what they had often heard or read be- 
fore without the smallest effect. And yet, without 
any argument to shake their ungodly principles, or 
special application, by any human being, of the 
word thus heard or read, to their particular condi- 
tion ; they felt their minds seized upon by an influ- 
ence from which no eflbrt of infidel argument, nor 
struggle of pride, nor drowning of thought, nor 
exertion of courage, nor devices of company and 
amusement, could enable them to escape. A hand 
seemed to be upon them, which all their efforts to 
shake off" only fastened with more painful power. 
They could get no peace of mind till they submitted 
to its arrest. They were induced to listen to the 
Gospel of Christ, even while deeply conscious of a 
cordial opposition to its requirements. A conviction 
of sin and condemnation, such as they had ever 
derided, soon brought them to a posture of body and 
a spirit of supplication before God, in which, a short 
time before, they would not have been seen for the 
world. Soon they subjnitted to the claims of the 



328 LECTURE XI. 

Gospel ; became believers in Jesus ; confessed him 
before men, and appeared, to all that had known 
them before, — in what aspect ? As new creatures I 
Only a few days have elapsed since they were noto- 
rious scoffers, bold blasphemers, angry persecutors ; 
of profligate habits, impure conversation, and hard- 
ened hearts, armed at all points against religion ; 
immoveable, in their own estimation, by any thing 
christians could say, and regarded by almost all that 
knew them as utterly beyond conversion. 

Now behold the change ! It is a change, not 
merely of belief, but of heart. Their whole moral 
nature has been recast; affections, desires, pleasures, 
tempers, conduct, have all become new. What 
each hated, a few days since, he now affectionately 
loves. What then he was devotedly fond of, he now 
sincerely detests. Prayer is his delight. He thirsts 
for holiness. His old companions he pities and 
loves for their souls' sake ; but their tastes, conver- 
sation, and habits, are loathsome to his heart. Feel- 
ings, recently obdurate, have become tender. A 
temper, long habituated to anger, and violence, and 
resentment, is now gentle, peaceful, and forgiving. 
Christians, whose company and intercourse he lately 
could not abide, are now his dear and chosen com- 
panions, with whom he loves to think of dwelling 
for ever. The proud unbeliever is a humble dis- 
ciple. The selfish profligate has become self-denied 
and exemplary, animated with a benevolent desire 
to do good. All these changes are so conspicuous 
to others — he has become, and continues to be, so 
manifestly a new man, in life and heart — that the 
ungodly are struck with the suddenness and extent 
of the transformation. 

This is a drawing from life. That such cases have 
frequently occuiTed, and have been followed by all 
the permanent blessings of a holy life, in thousands 
of places, and before witnesses of all descriptions, 



LECTURE XI. 329 

it were a mockery of human testimony and of the 
faith of history to question. There is scarcely a 
faithful preacher of the Gospel, whose ministry has 
not been blessed with such fruits. There is scarcely 
a village in this country, whose inhabitants cannot 
tell of many such examples. They began when 
Christianity began. They have been repeated as 
pure Christianity has been promoted and extended. 
Such a case was that of Saul of Tarsus. One mo- 
ment he was a furious enemy of Jesus ; learned, 
talented, proud ; of high reputation ; of brilliant 
prospects; the champion of Judea against the 
Gospel of Christ ; bearing the commission, and 
full of the spirit, of a persecutor. The next, he 
was on his face on the ground, calling upon Jesus 
in the spirit of entire submission and deep repent- 
ance. In a few days, he was preaching Christ in 
the synagogues, at the risk of life, having made a 
total sacrifice of all earthly prospects and posses- 
sions, and given himself up to reproach, poverty, and 
universal hatred, for the sake of the Gospel. All 
his dispositions, affections, and habits had in that 
short space undergone so complete a change, with- 
out any human agency, that he had become, and 
continued to be, directly the opposite of his former 
character. Many similar examples must have been 
included in those three thousand converts of the day 
of Pentecost, who, although when the morning rose 
upon them they were filled with all the enmity of 
Jews and of crucifiers of Jesus, before the day 
was over, were bowed at the feet of the same Jesus, 
as his baptized disciples. So changed were they in 
every worldly disposition, that they '* sold their 
possessions and goods, and parted them to all men 
as every man had need ;" and all this under no 
human influence, but that of the preaching of men 
whom they began to hear with contempt, and of a 
doctrine to which they began to listen with the most 



330 LECTURE XI. 

rancorous aversion. How many thousand cases of 
the same kind would the domestic history of the 
first century of the Gospel furnish ! What volumes 
might be filled with similar examples, which the 
annals of Christianity in the nineteenth century, and 
especially in this country, would exhibit ! Who has 
attended to the blessed effects with which the distri- 
bution of tracts and Bibles has been accompanied, 
and cannot call to mind instances in which the 
wonderful changes that were wrought in the Earl of 
Rochester, in Colonel Gardiner, and in the once 
degraded, and afterwards excellent, John Newton, 
have in all important respects been equalled ? 
Since I commenced the preparation of this lecture, 
a case in point has come to my view. Called from 
my study, to see a man who had come on business, 
I found in the parlour a well-dressed person, of 
respectable appearance, good manners, and sensible 
conversation — a stranger. After a little while, he 
looked at me earnestly, and said : " I think, sir, I 
have seen your face before." " Probably,'* said I, 
supposing he had seen me in the pulpit. '* Did you 
not once preach, in the receiving ship at the navy- 
yard, on the prodigal son, sir V* *' Yes." *' Did 
you not afterwards go to a sailor sitting on his chest, 
and take his hand, and say, " Friend, do you love to 
read your Bible V '' '' Yes.*' " I, sir, was that 
sailor ; but then I knew nothing about the Bible or 
about God : I was a poor, ignorant, degraded sin- 
ner.'' I learned his history, in substance, as follows. 
He had been twenty-five years a sailor, and nearly 
all that time in the service of the British navy, in- 
dulging in all the extremes of a sailor's vices. 
Drunkenness, debauchery, profaneness made up his 
character. The fear of death, or hell, or God, had 
not entered his mind. Such was he, a sink of de- 
pravity, when a humble preacher, of the Methodist 
denomination, one day, assembled a little congre- 



LECTURE XI. 331 

gation of sailors in the ship to which he was at- 
tached, and spoke on the text, *' Behold, now is 
the accepted time ; behold, now is the day of salva^ 
tion." He listened, merely because the preacher 
was once a sailor. Soon it appeared to him that 
the latter saw and knew him, though he was sitting 
where he supposed himself concealed. Every word 
seemed to be meant for a description of him. To 
avoid being seen and marked, he several times 
changed his place, carefully getting behind the 
others. But wherever he went, the preacher seemed 
to follow him, and to describe his course of life, as 
if he knew it all. At length the discourse was 
ended ; and the poor sailor, assured that he had 
been the single object of the speaker's labours, went 
up and seized his hand, and said, ** Sir, I am the 
very man. That's just the life I have led. I am a 
poor miserable man ; but I feel a desire to be good, 
and will thank you for some of your advice upon 
the subject.'' The preacher bade him pray. He 
answered, " I have never prayed in my life, but that 
I might be damned, as when I was swearing ; and I 
don't know how to pray." He was instructed. It 
was a day or two after this, while his mind was 
anxious but unenlightened, that Providence led me 
to him, sitting on his chest. He said I showed him 
a verse of the Bible, as one that would guide him. 
I asked if he remembered which it was, *' Yes, it 
was, ' Him that cometh unto me^ I will in no wise 
cast out^ " Soon after this, his mind was comforted 
with a hope of salvation through Jesus Christ. His 
vices were all abandoned. He became, from that 
time, a new creature in all his dispositions and 
habits ; took special care to be scrupulously atten- 
tive to every duty of his station ; gained the confi- 
dence of his officers; and, having left the service, 
has continued ever since (more than three years) an 
exemplary member of society, and of the church of 






32 LECTURE XI. 



Christ. He is so entirely renewed, that no one 
could imagine, from his appearance or manners, that 
he had been, for twenty-five years, a drunken, aban- 
doned sailor. This case I have selected only be- 
cause it readily occurred It is by no means a solitary 
case. ' Nor is it any the worse for being taken 
from among the poor and ignorant. I know not 
that beastly vice is more susceptible of removal, 
or that habits of drunkenness, debauchery, and 
profaneness, are any more capable of being 
changed into those of soberness, purity, and 
prayer, for being seated in ignorance and poverty, 
than when associated with learning, rank, and 

opulence. 

Now, be it remarked, that the reality of such 
cases is a matter of fact, which one may question 
with about as much reason as he might deny the 
best established phenomena in natural history. Be 
it remarked, also, that in all such effects, the indi- 
viduals concerned have ascribed the total change in 
their hearts and lives to the direct influence of the 
word and Spirit of God, as set forth in the Gospel of 
Jesus Christ. They have generally been able to tell 
the particular truth, or combination of scriptural 
truths, that awakened them from the death of sin, 
and led them to embrace the hope of Christ and the 
life of righteousness. Be it remarked, also, that 
among all the cases of such conversions, in all ages, 
and regions, and circumstances, and with all va- 
rieties of character, there has been a wonderful 
identity. The same effects, essentially, have en- 
sued undei the application of the same Gospel in 
the present century, as in the time of St. Paul ; in 
modern Europe, as in ancient Greece and Rome ; 
in Hindoostan, as in North America ; among Hot- 
tentots, and the islanders of the South Sea, and 
savages of our western borders, as among the po- 
lished inhabitants of New York or London. While 



LECTURE XI* 333 

all these varieties of age, climate, customs, and cul- 
tivation, give a natural and pleasing variety to what 
may be called, in a figure, the complexion, and 
costume, in vi^hich the conversion appears ; the great 
change itself exhibits, under all circumstances, the 
same characteristic and inimitable features; inso- 
much that if you draw the likeness of a genuine 
convert to Christ in his chief peculiarities, as mani- 
fested m this country, and send it to Burmah, or to 
the Sandwich Islands, or to CafFre-land, or to 
Whampoa in China, or to Greenland, it will be con- 
sidered a good likeness in main points, of the dis- 
positions, affections, tempers, habits, and life, pro- 
duced by the converting power of the Gospel in any 
of those widely differing regions. A genuine con- 
vert to Christ, in China or in Africa, may come to 
this country, and find among genuine christians here 
precisely his own feelings, tastes, sympathies, and 
labours, though he never saw an American or Euro- 
pean before ; and he will be more at home among 
their christian feelings, than he can be among the 
manners and dispositions of the people among whom 
he grew up and has always lived. Thus it is evident 
that, whatever be the cause of these universally 
similar effects, it must be the same cause, univer- 
sally ; the same in all ages, and in all parts of the 
world. 

Now, whether the Gospel of Jesus Christ pro- 
duced these great and invariably corresponding 
effects ; or whether they proceeded from some other 
universal cause, of which none of the subjects were 
ever conscious, and which was never known where 
the Gospel was not known, and never operates but 
under the name, and by means of, the Gospel ; no 
man of any philosophical pretensions is at liberty to 
doubt. He has precisely the same reason to be 
assured that the Gospel, and nothing else on earth, 
13 the cause of these admirable fruits ; as that any 



334 LECTURE XI. 

medicine is the cause of a sick man's recovery to 
health ; or that any vine, rather than a thorn-tree, 
produced the grapes obtained from its branches. 

Then, since these effects unquestionably belong to 
the Gospel, how are they to be accounted for ? It 
will not do to put them aside, under the uncere- 
monious imputation of fanaticism or enthusiastic 
excitement. Words are not reasons. Infidel cant is 
not philosophical argument. If the Gospel be un- 
true ; then, not only must these most excellent fruits 
be attributed to a corrupt tree, and these whole- 
some streams to a poisoned fountain ; but it must be 
supposed that such sudden and entire transform- 
ations of human character, from the lowest debase- 
ment of nature, to the highest principles of virtue 
and purity, are nothing more than the results ot 
human agency and natural means. But if this be 
the case ; if a system of untruth in the hand of man 
has done all this, we have reason to expect that 
some other systems of doctrine, with the same agency, 
would be productive of equal effects. How then 
can it be accounted for, that nothing has ever been 
invented or heard of, in all the earth, to which any 
results of a like kind could be ascribed ? Other 
causes have produced strong excitements, but no 
transformation of heart and life from sin to holiness. 
Other means have improved the morals of men, by 
slow and in small degrees ; but none ever took hold 
of a human wreck, and lifted him up out of the 
mire and dirt of his profligacy, and carried him at 
once across the wide gulf that separated him from 
pureness, and in a few days placed him m a new 
moral region, with a new heart, and, in all things, 
a new creature. How can this be explained, if the 
Gospel be a human invention, and its effects of 
-human production? Why should not infidels be 
capable, with all their wisdom and eloquence, ot 
getting up a set of influences to rival these Gospel 



LECTURE XI. 335 

wonders, and deprive christians of this monopoly of 
the work of new creation and of holiness ? How is 
it that in proportion as any church degenerates from 
the simplicity and purity of the Gospel, it ceases to 
witness such changes in the people attendant on its 
preaching ? It is nothing to say that many things 
called conversions eventuate in no good fruits, and 
are nothing more than the natural consequences of 
temporary excitement. This is freely granted. But 
you do not condemn a whole orchard, because some 
of the trees were not successfully grafted ; nor all 
virtuous men, because some, under the profession of 
virtue, are mere pretenders. It is sufficient that 
thousands and thousands of these effects have been 
of the most radical and permanently beneficial cha- 
racter. Were they of human production, some- 
thing of a corresponding kind would have appeared 
from other sources ; by other hands than those of 
christians ; in other countries and ages than those 
enlightened by the Bible. Inasmuch as this has 
never occurred, we are fully warranted in concluding 
that it could not ; consequently, that these effects 
are above the reach of human power. To whom 
then shall we go, hut unto thee, O Lord ! who hast 
committed this treasure of the Gospel to earthen 
vessels, to feeble men, to dispense it ; " that the 
excellency of the power may be of God, and not of 
us." That we cannot comprehend in what manner 
the power of God operates in the hearts of men, to 
work such wonderful revolutions in their characters, 
is no valid objection to the matter of fact. ** The 
wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the 
sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh 
and whither it goeth.'' The phenomena of the winds 
are incomprehensible, and yet believed. ** So is 
every one that is born of the Spirit.'' 

Now, I think we may be content to pass from the 
position with which we began — that the moral 



336 LECTURE XI, 

transformations which the Gospel, in all ages, has 
notoriously wrought, and, by unquestionable proofs, 
exhibited to the world, in the characters of those 
who have become its genuine disciples, cannot be 
accounted for, but on the supposition of a divine 
power accompanying its operations. 

II. We proceed to speak of the fruits of Chris- 
tianity, as displayed in the lives of its genuine dis- 
ciples, in contrast with those which notoriously cha- 
racterize the lives of its opposers. The virtues of 
true christians have been the same in all ages of 
Christianity. It was " with well doing'' that, m the 
days of St. Paul, they were accustomed to silence 
their enemies. Having become free from sin, they 
became servants of righteousness, and had their 
fruit unto holiness. '^ Such were some o^ you, 
saith St. Paul to christians of that famous brothel 
of all Greece, the city of Corinth, '' Such were 
some of you (partakers in all vice;) but ye are 
washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified 
in the name of the Lord Jesus, and by the Spirit of 
our God.'' The apostles could appeal to whole 
communities, for evidence of their blameless cha- 
racter. " Ye are witnesses, and God also, how 
holily, and justly, and unblameably we behaved our- 
selves among you." Even by the testimony of the 
ancient and deadly enemies of the Gospel, the lives 
oi christians had no parallel among any other people. 
The early defenders of the faith publicly challenged 
a scrutiny of their virtues. It was their remarkable 
stedfastness in resisting the allurements of vice, and 
their heroic patience under all the tortures employed 
to break their attachment to holiness, that often 
excited the bitterest hatred of their enemies. Cora- 
pare the purity, benevolence, and humility of the 
apostles, with those of any philosophers of antiquity, 
or any leaders in modern infidelity. Phny, the 
Roman governor, in the first century, having inves- 



LECTURE XI. 337 

tigated extensively, and even by torture, the moral 
character of the christians, who filled the province 
over v^hich he presided, declares, in his celebrated 
letter to Trajan, that he could discover nothing more 
against them than that '' they were accustomed, on 
a stated day, to meet before daylight, and to repeat 
among themselves a hymn to Christ as to a god, and 
to bind themselves by an oath not to commit any 
wickedness ; but, on che contrary, to abstain from 
thefts, robberies, and adulteries ; also not to violate 
their promise, or deny a pledge ; after which it was 
their custom to separate, and to meet again at a 
promiscuous, harmless meal." Gibbon fully sustains 
this testimony. By his description alone, the primi- 
tive christians were lights of unequalled excellence 
in the midst of heathen darkness and depravity.. 
What christians were in primitive ages, they still 
remain, exactly in proportion as you have reason to 
believe their hearts to be engaged in their faith. To 
Say in this country that any one is a true christis^n, 
is at once to give a certificate that he is worthy of 
all confidence, and more than usually virtuous ; w^e 
could not desire a more complete proof of public 
opinion di^ to the personal fruits of the Gospel. The 
bare fact that there are hypocritical professors of 
the christian character ; that bad men will put 
themselves to the self-denial of endeavouring to act 
and seem like christians, for the purpose of gaining 
confidence in their integrity, is a strong proof of the 
public estimation in which christian virtue is held, 
and of the genuine gold of which the character of 
a real disciple of Christ is composed. Men never 
counterfeit a spurious currency. .Copper coin is too 
cheap to tempt a forgery. We never hear of the 
wicked putting on the mask of infidelity, to secure 
a character for honesty, soberness, chastity, faith- 
fulness, and benevolence. If christian virtue were 
not in high repute, and much more current in society 

z 



338 LECTURE XI. 

than any other, hypocrites would take care to choose 
a mask that would sit more pleasantly upon their 
vicious propensities ; they would select a cloak that 
would less confine and smother their smful habits. 
It is notorious among us, that no sooner do we hear 
of an individual that he has become a commuiiicant 
in the church, than the presumption is, that he is not 
only sober, honest, and of pure morality, but that he 
has adopted principles of a very elevated virtue and 
purity, and is more than ordinarily benevolent. 
Whence this, but from the general experience ot 
•what communicants are? What is it that makes a 
breach of truth and honesty, or an act of cruelty, 
. or a violation of justice, or a departure from chas- 
tity or temperance, in a person professing to be a 
genuine christian, so immediately and generally a 
matter of particular notice and surprise among all 
classes? Is it not because such occurrences are 
singular, and little expected ? But they excite no 
surprise, and but little attention, when attached to 
those who reject Christianity ; because among sucU 
people they are neither singular nor unexpected. 

Why is it that parents so universally preter to 
have genuine christians intrusted with the education 
of their children? that when places of trust and 
temptation are to be filled ; when men have pro- 
perty to invest, or agents to engage, m a business 
requiring special inflexibility of uprightness they 
feel it to be at once a heavy weight in the scale ot a 
candidate, that he is a sincere and devoted christian < 

» The lecturer was once particularly struck with the evi- 
dence of this. He was connected with the military academy 
at West Point. Two offices of great importance to the dis- 
Dline of the corps of cadets were to be filled from its own 
rinks. The order of the academy had suffered materially 
for want of officers in those places, who would "<" f^"!,!! 
from duty out of deference to the public opinion, the per- 
suasions or threatenings of their fellows, '''^^o «f «'^.:"; 
selected, who had recently become professors of rexig.on. 



LECTURE XI, 339 

Who are the benevolent, disinterested, self-denied 
labourers in all good works ? Where do the poor, 
and hungry, and outcast, apply for assistance with 
the most confidence of finding a sympathizing heart 
and a ready hand? Go around to all the noble 
institutions of charity ; to the asylums for orphans, 
for widows, for the blind, for the deaf and dumb, 
for juvenile criminals ; to the schools of gratuitous 
instruction. Take a list of those who give money, 
and time, and toil, for their support. What would 
become of them, were it not for the christians asso- 
ciated in all their concerns ? Who are they that 
tread the loathsome alleys, and dive into the wretched 
habitations of vice and poverty, in crowded cities, 
in cold winter, hunting up the wretched subjects of 
disease and pollution, for the purpose of relieving 
and reclaiming them ? Who put themselves to the 
painful work of begging for the poor, and, after 
bearing all the extreme unpleasantness of such a 
task, finish their labour in the careful distribution of 
their hard-earned alms, asking no recompense but 
that of doing good ? 

From christians in general, turn your attention to 
their leaders. Is it not well known that when a minis- 

They were assailed with all manner of influence to induce 
them to relax in favour of certain indulgences to which a 
portion of the corps had been accustomed at the hands of 
their predecessors. I need not say they mildly, but firmly, 
held to their duty. One day, as they were leading out the 
companies to which they were attached, for evening parade, 
I said to an officer of the institution, who had been chiefly 
instrumental in their selection, "Why have you chosen 
these cadets for such places ?. One of 'them, indeed, has a 
fine soldierly appearance ; but the other is just the contrary, 
and has nothing of the soldier about him." " Why, (said 
he,) the truth is, we required those who would do their duty 
without regard to the wishes and expectations of others, or 
to the custom that has been prevalent in the corps ; and we 
knew they would be firm/' I never heard of this confidence 
being disappointed. 

z2 



340 LECTURE XI. 

ter of the Gospel can be commended for nothing 
more than a moral life and unblemished honesty, it 
is considered a positive condemnation? To give 
him the highest praise that a Deist can pretend to, 
and then to say no more, is to leave his character 
under a taint. It is expected that he will be more 
than moral, and honest, and friendly. You look 
that he shall be holy, eminently pure ; full ot active 
benevolence, going about doing good. Prove that 
be is destitute of these distinguished virtues, and 
public opinion will adjudge him unworthy ot his 
name and profession. That all ministers are not 
exemplary and devotedly holy men, only proves that 
the sacred office, like all others, is liable to be in- 
truded on by the unworthy. Every body knows that 
such cases, instead of being favoured by the inttu-= 
ence of Christianity, are directly opposed to it. But 
subtract from the number of the ministers ot the 
Gospel, every one on whom the least suspicion ot a 
want of virtue ever rested ; leave none, but those 
who at any moment can obtain, from all that know 
them, the praise of being the excellent of the earth ; 
and what a host will remain of men whose lives are 
conspicuous examples of inflexible integrity and ot 
exalted principles of purity and holiness ; whose 
daily strength is laid out in efforts to benefit their 
fellow-creatures; and around whom, at the bare 
mention of a charge implicating their characters, 
will be collected the widow, the fatherless, the 
stranger, with those who have been lifted up out of 
ignorance, or reclaimed from profligacy, or dehvered 
from wretchedness, in grateful defence of their best 
earthly benefactors. 

ISow, for the sake of a contrast, let us turn to the 
lives of infidels, I do not deny that there are in- 
stances of such men, who have led what passes for 
a good moral life ; men of fair dealing in business, 
and of sober, decent habits ; whom public opinion, 



LECTURE XI. 341 

the customs of society, intellectual occupations, and 
prosperous circumstances, have preserved from the 
slavery of low propensities and criminal deeds. But 
what is there in such virtue, beyond a fair outside? 
Is it formed upon any foundation more meritorious 
than that of reputation, interest, and the expecta- 
tion of society ? Could you trust its purity in the 
presence of strong temptation ? What would be- 
come of it, should interest, reputation, and human 
customs, withdraw their countenance, and preach a 
contrary practice ? But we speak of infidels, as a 
body. The fact that a few are singled out and 
marked as sober, honest, moral men, only proves 
that such cases are exceptions to the character of 
the heterogeneous body with which they are asso- 
ciated. It is a general rule, that when you say of a 
man " he is an infidel," it is to say, that he is not a 
moral man ; not a benevolent man ; not a person to 
engage in any self-denying labours for the purpose 
of doing good. This is pubhc opinion, the result of 
a long experiment of infidelity. Its foundatiori may 
be seen in the whole history of criminal jurispru- 
dence. The records of our courts ; the annals of 
our penitentiaries ; the police of large cities ; the 
inner chambers of the gambling house and the bro- 
thel. Cases of seduction, adultery, and suicide, are 
the authorities to which reference should be made 
for the fruits of infidelity, as generally exhibited. 

A French writer, addressing Voltaire, asks him, 
'' Will you dare assert that it is in philosophic 
familks we are to look for models of filial respect, 
conjugal love, sincerity in friendship, or fidelity 
among domestics ? Were you disposed to do so, 
would not your own conscience, your own experience, 
suppress the falsehood, even before your lips could 
utter it?" An anecdote, in point, is related by 
Fuller. A man of literary eminence, but an infidel, 
was accustomed to converse with a brother sceptic 



342 LECTURE XI. 

where they were necessarily heard by a pious but 
uneducated countryman. Afterwards, it came to 
pass that the educated infidel became an humble 
christian. Feeling, now, a serious concern lest his 
conversation should have poisoned the mind of the 
countryman, he inquired if such was the fact. ** By 
no means," answered the other ; " it never made 
the least impression." "No impression! Why, 
you must have known that we had read and thought 
on these things much more than you had any oppor- 
tunity of doing." *' O yes," said the other, " but 
I knew also your manner of living. I knew that to 
maintain such a course of conduct you found it 
necessary to renounce Christianity."* 

It is well known now very seldom such a thing 
has occurred as the detection, in any penitentiary 
crime, of one who had enjoyed the benefit, for a 
considerable period, of a Sunday school education ; 
although, during the last twenty years, millions, in 
Great Britain and the United States, have had that 
privilege. What if all these had been trained, with 
equal dihgence, in schools of infidelity! How dif- 
ferently would the effects of the system have been 
marked upon the records of crime, and upon , the 
peace, purity, and order of society ! 

The precise difference between the fruits of Chris- 
tianity and of infidelity, as exhibited in the general 
assembly of their respective professors, consists in 
this: There are those who profess to be christians, 
and yet are wicked men ; but they are wicked, in 
direct opposition to the influence of Christianity, as 
well as to the characters and influence of those with 
whom they are connected. There are, also, those 
who profess to be infidels, and yet are men of so- 
briety, and amiableness, and moral deportment ; but 
they are such, in direct opposition to the influence 
of infidelity, as well as to the characters and influ- 

* Gospel its Own Witness, 



LECTURE XI. 343 

ence of those with whom, as infidels, they are asso- 
ciated. The former and the latter are alike excep- 
tions to the general rule. 

But let us turn from infidels in general, to their 
teachers and leaders. A stream is seldom purer than 
its fountain. A river rises no higher than its source. 
We may consider the chief priests and scribes, the 
elders, and rulers, and champions of infidelity, who 
have constructed its various creeds, and composed 
its books of scripture — its Humes, and Tindals, and 
Bolingbrokes, and Paines, and Voltaires, and Rous- 
seaus — as affording, in the average of their cha- 
racter, a fair standard for the measurement of the 
moral stature of infidels in general. What, then, 
was the moral worth of those renowned leaders in 
the war against Christianity ? Let us look at their 
principles. 

Herbert maintained that the indulgence of lust 
and anger is no more to be blamed than the thirst 
of a fever, or the drowsiness of a lethargy. Thus, 
every vicious propensity was licensed. Hobbes, 
that every man has a right to all things, and may 
lawfully get them if he can. Thus, all theft was 
licensed. Again, that a subject may lawfully deny 
Christ before a magistrate, although he believes 
Christ in his heart. Thus, all hypocrisy was licen- 
sed. Again, that a ruler is not bound by any obli- 
gation of truth or justice, and can do no wrong to 
his subjects. Thus, all tyrannical oppression and 
cruelty were licensed. Again, that the civil law is 
the sole foundation of good and evil ; of right and 
wrong. Thus, moral principle is as various as cli- 
mate and country; and vice in one, may be exalted 
virtue in another. Hume maintained that self-de- 
nial, self-mortification, and humility, are not virtu- 
ous, but useless and mischievous ; that pride and 
^elf-valuation, ingenuity, eloquence, strength of 
body, &c., are virtues ; that suicide is lawful and 



344 LECTURE XI. 

commendable ; that adultery must be practised^ if we 
would obtain all the advanta2:es of life ; that female 
infidelity, when known, is a small thing; when un- 
known, nothing. Bolingbroke, that ambition, the 
lust of power, avarice, and sensuality, may be law- 
fully gratified, if they can be safely gratified ; that 
modesty is inspired by mere prejudice, and has its 
sole foundation in vanity ; that man's chief end is 
to gratify the appetites and inclinations of the flesh ; 
that '^ adultery is no violation of the law or religion 
of nature ; that there is no wrong in lewdness, ex- 
cept m the highest incest."* 

These principles will suffice as specimens of infi- 
del writers in regard to moral obligation. It is fair 
to judge men by their professions. Few rise above 
their opinions, in practice, none in heart. When 
one contends that he may innocently indulge his 
vicious propensities, we need not doubt that he does 
indulge them. These writers either believed what 
they professed, or they did not. If the latter, they 
were gross hypocrites, endeavouring to spread what 
they knew was deadly poison. If the former, then 
tell me what kind of practice, what veracity, what 
honesty, what chastity, or any other virtue, can be 
supposed to have dwelt in men who in grave, philo- 
sophical discussions could publish such sentiments 
to the world ? Had we no other evidence of the 
lives they led, we might conclude with certainty, 
from these professed opinions, that, while one, here 
and there, may not have carried them out to their 
full extent, none could have been, in any sense, 
good men ; while the generality must have been 
without any regard to truth ; guilty of gross hypo- 
crisy and dissimulation ; willing to offer any sacri- 
fice at the shrine of ambition and human praise ; 
unbridled in temper and passion; seducers, adul- 
terers, and corrupters of their fellow-creatures, 

* See Dwight on Infidel Philosophy. 



LECTURE XI. 345 

Such is the description which, so far as any accounts 
of their private characters have been received, is 
fully sustained by facts. 

Hume pretended to a great diligence in search of 
truth, and ^pent all his powers against the Gospel, 
and yet, says Dr. Johnson, ** confessed that he had 
never read the New Testament with attention,'' 
His friend in scepticism, Adam Smith, considered 
him *^ as approaching as nearly to the idea of a 
perfectly wise and virtuous man as perhaps the 
nature of human frailty will permit." But since, 
in his estimation, female infidelity, when unknown, 
w^as nothing, one needs pretty positive evidence to 
believe that he was specially pure.* 

Gibbon's moral character is seen in his History of 
the Roman Empire ; a work full of hypocrisy, per- 

* That Hume's was a virtue without chastity, is evident 
from his essays. They contain passages, by way of wit or 
illustration, not only gratuitously introduced, but forced in 
by a mere amateur taste of the writer, which a chaste mind 
would not have thought of, and a man of chaste habits 
and principles would have rejected, as both polluting to his 
pages, and disgraceful to his character. I cannot believe 
that one who could venture on such sentences before the 
public eye, and shew such pleasure and evident facility in 
gi'ovelling indecencies of writing, was free from unclean 
practice where no public eye was to be encountered. And 
still, in Adam Smith's opinion, he may have been '* as per- 
fectly virtuous as the nature of human frailty would permit." 
What exceptions are included under this last clause, who 
can say ? In an infiders creed, virtue has no more quarrel 
with unchasteness than, in the creed of the Spartans, it had 
with theft. Among the latter, nothing was required to make 
stealing virtuous, but concealment. Among the virtuosi 
of infidelity, what more is required to establish the innocence 
of impurity. 

The person who put out an edition of Hume's Essays in 
this country, dedicating it to the president of the United 
States, and lauding Hume and his principles to the skies, 
shewed how he had profited by his favourite volume, at least 
by the Essay in Defence of Suicide, by killing himself by 
drunkenness. 



346 LECTURE XI, 

version, and impurity ; the production of a mind as 
unchaste, as it was insidious. When he could not 
find an occasion to insult Christianity, he made it, 
by false glosses or dishonest colourings, *' A rage 
for indecency pervades the whole work ; but espe- 
cially the last volumes. If the history were anony- 
mous, I should guess that these disgraceful obsce- 
nities were written by some debauchee, who having, 
from age, or accident, or excess, survived the prac- 
tice of lust, still indulged himself in its speculations; 
and exposed the impotent imbecility, after he had 
lost the vigour, of the passions/'* This was no 
** arrow shot at a venture/' 

What gross hypocrisy and lying pervade the 
writings of Herbert, Hobbes, Shaftesbury, Woolston, 
Tindal, Collins, Blount, Chubb, and Bolingbroke ! 
One while they are praising Christianity, exalting 
Jesus, professing to have the sincerest desire that 
the Gospel may be promoted. At another time, 
they are scoffing at its essential doctrines ; charging 
its Founder with imposture ; and diligently labour- 
ing to destroy it. Hobbes affirms, that the Scrip- 
tures are the voice of God, and the foundation of all 
obligation ; and yet that all religion is ridiculous. 
Shaftesbury says, that it is censurable to represent 
the Gospel as a fraud ; that he hopes its enemies 
will be reconciled to it, and its friends prize it 
more highly ; and yet he represents salvation as 
ridiculous; insinuates that the designs of Christ 
were those of deep ambition, and his zeal and spirit 
savage and persecuting ; that the Scriptures were 
an artful invention for mercenary purposes. Collins 
protests that none are further from being engaged in 
the cause of infidelity ; that he writes for the ho- 
nour of Jesus, and the defence of Christianity ; to 
advance the messiahship and truth of the holy 
Jesus, ** to whom,'' he says, '' be glory for ever and 

* Porson, 



LECTURE XI. 347 

ever, amen /' and yet he casts the most scurrilous 
reflections on this holy One, compares the Gospels to 
Gulliverian tales, says they are full of absurdities, 
and must be rejected, and the authority of Jesus 
along with them.* 

Such are a few examples of the honesty of such 
men. What if christians should thus flatter infi- 
delity, and next revile it ? When would their op- 
ponents ceas»e exposing their hypocrisy ? The best 
of infidel writers cannot be trusted on the score of 
veracity, when Christianity is in question. The 
corruption of the texts of books, the misrepresenta- 
tion of facts, the grossest unfairness in citations, 
are accounted lawful by their Humes and Gibbons, 
in this controversy. One of their own fraternity 
may here be allowed to testify. ** If," says Rous- 
seau, " our philosophers were able to discover truth, 
which of them would interest himself about it ? 
There is not one among them who would not prefer 
his own error to the truth discovered by another. 
Where is the philosopher, who, for his own glory, 
would not willingly deceive the whole human race ?" 
I need not spend time, after all that has been exhi- 
bited, in showing that such leaders in infidelity have 
evinced no spirit of benevolence, no disposition to 
labour for the benefit of their fellow-creatures ; but, 
on the contrary, have lived unto themselves, and, 
almost without exception, cultivated the coldest 
selfishness. 

But to speak more airectly of the morals of lead- 
ing infidels. Bolingbroke was a libertine, of intem- 
perate habits and unrestrained lust. Temple was a 
corrupter of all that came near him, given up to 
ease and pleasure. Emerson, an eminent mathe- 
matician, was " rude, vulgar, and frequently immo- 
ral.'* *' Intoxication and profane language were 
familiar to him. Towards the close of life, being 
* Dwight on Infidel Philosophy. 



348 * LECTURE XI. 

afflicted with the stone, he would crawl about the 
floor on his hands and knees, sometimes praying^ 
sometimes swearing ^ The morals of the Earl of 
Ptochester are well known. Godwin was a lewd 
man by his own confession, as well as the unblush- 
ing advocate of lewdness. Shaftesbury and Collins, 
while endeavouring to destroy the Gospel, partook 
of the Lord's Supper, thus professing christian faith 
for admission to office ! *' Woolston was a gross 
blasphemer. Blount solicited his sister-in-law to 
marry him ; and being refused, shot himself. Tindal 
was originally a protestant, then turned papist, then 
protestant again, merely to suit the times ; and 
was at the same time infamous for vice in general, 
and the total want of principle. He is said to have 
died with this prayer in his mouth : ** If there is a 
God, I desire that he may have mercy on me.'' 
Hobbes wrote his Leviathan, to serve the cause of 
Charles L ; but finding him fail of success, he 
turned it to the defence of Cromwell, and made a 
merit of this fact to the usurper : as Hobbes him- 
self unblushingly declared to Lord Clarendon."* 
Need I describe Voltaire ? — prince of scoffers, as 
Hume was prince of sceptics ; in childhood initiated 
into infidelity; in boyhood, famous for daring 
blasphemy ; in manhood, distinguished for a malig- 
nant, violent temper, for cold-blooded disruptions of 
all the ties and decencies of the family circle, for 
the ridicule of whatever was affecting, and the vio- 
lation of whatever was confidential ! Ever increasing 
in duplicity and hypocritical management, with age 
and practice ; those whom his wit attracted and 
his buffoonery amused, were either disgusted or 
polluted by his loathsome vices. Lies and oaths, 
in their support, were nothing in his account. Those 
whom he openly called his friends, he took 

* Dwight on Infidel Philosophy. 



LECTURE XI. 349 

pains secretly to calumniate ; flattering them to 
their faces, ridiculing and reviling them behind 
their backs. Years only added stiffness to the dis- 
gusting features of his impiety, coldness to his dark 
malignity, and fury to his impetuous temper. 
Throughout life, he was given up *' to work all un- 
cleanness with greediness.*' Such was the witty 
Voltaire, who, in the midst of his levity, had feeling 
and seriousness enough to wish he had never been 
born. 

What shall we say of J, J. Rousseau? — a thief, 
and liar, and debauched profligate, by his own 
** Confession/' Educated a protestant, he turned 
papist for " subsistence;'' and afterwards professed 
protestantism again at Geneva, that he might enjoy 
the rights of citizenship, while all the while he was 
a foul-mouthed infidel. He began life as an appren- 
tice. Having robbed his master and others, he fled, 
and became a footman, in which capacity, having 
again acted the thief, he tried to swear the crime on 
a maid-servant, who lost her place by his villany. 
Stealing he never abandoned, however abandoned 
himself. Late in life, he said, *' I have been a 
rogue, and am so still, for trifles which I had rather 
take than ask for." Of his intercourse with vile 
women ; how he took advantage of the hospitality 
of friends to ruin the characters of those who re- 
ceived him kindly ; how he coldly committed, one 
by one, the offsprings of his base connexions to the 
charity of the public, that he might be spared their 
trouble, and have room for more ; how utterly devoid 
was this talented infidel of all natural affection, as 
well as all decency ; my lecture is too modest to 
relate. To use his own language, guilty without 
remorse, he soon became so without measure. Such 
was the man whom infidels have delighted to honour. 
The friends of Christ have reason to thank him for 
saying, ** / cannot believe the Gospel. '' For what 



350 LECTURE XT. 

communion hath light with darkness ? And what 
concord hath Christ with Belial ?*' 

Nothing but the circulation attempted, of late, to 
be given to the scurrilous writings of Paine, induces 
me to descend low enough amidst ** the ofFscouring 
of all things," to speak of the life of that miserable 
man. His first wife is said to have died by ill usage. 
His second was rendered so miserable by neglect 
and unkindness, that they separated by mutual 
agreement. His third companion, not his wife, was 
the victim of his seduction, while he lived upon the 
hospitality of her husband. Holding a place in the 
excise of England, he was dismissed for irregularity ; 
restored, and dismissed again for fraud, without re- 
covery. Unable to get employment where he was 
known, he came to this country, commenced poli- 
tician, and pretended to some faith in Christianity, 
Congress gave him an office, from which, being soon 
found guilty of a breach of trust, he was expelled 
with disgrace. The French revolution allured him 
to France. Habits of intoxication made him a 
disagreeable inmate in the house of the American 
minister, where out of compassion he had been re- 
ceived as a guest. During all this time, his life was 
a compound of ingratitude and perfidy, of hypocrisy 
and avarice, of lewdness and adultery. In June, 
1809, the poor creature died in this country. The 
lady in whose house he lived relates, that ** he was 
daily drunk, and, in his few moments of soberness, 
was always quarrelling with her, and disturbing the 
peace of the family." At that time *' he was deli- 
berately and disgustingly filthy." He had an old 
black woman for his servant, as drunken as her 
master. He accused her of stealing his rum ; she 
retaliated by accusing him of being an old drunkard. 
They would lie on the same floor, sprawling, and 
swearing, and threatening to fight, but too intoxi- 
cated to engage in battle. He removed, afterwards, 



LECTURE XI. 351 

to various families, continuing his habits, and pay- 
ing for his board only when compelled. In his 
drunken Jits f he was accustomed to talk about the 
immortality of the souL^ Probably much of his 
book against the inspiration of the Scriptures was 
inspired by his cups. Such was the author of ** The 
Age of Beason ;' such the apostle of mob-infi- 
delity. Unhappy man ! Neither he, nor Rousseau, 
nor Voltaire, is dead, except in the flesh. Their 
immortal souls are thinking as actively, at least, as 
ever. We and they will stand, on the same great 
day, before the bar of God. How awful, in reference 
to such despisers and scoffers, is that description : 
** Behold he cometh with clouds; and every eye 
shall see him, and they also which pierced him.'' 

III. We proceed to speak, in the last place, of 
the fruits of Christianity, as displayed in the deaths 
of its genuine disciples^ in contrast with those con-, 
nee ted with infidelity. 

There is no question to which the testimony of the 
death- bed is so legitimately applicable, as that be- 
tween infidelity and Christianity ; not only because 
the hour of death is specially to be relied on, as an 
hour of dispassionate and conscientious judgment ; 
but, particularly, because it is one of the precious 
promises of the Gospel, that true believers shall find 
the sting of death taken away, and experience rich 
consolation and support, when heart and flesh are 
failing. Infidelity, also, has published her promises 
in relation to the trial of death ; and her disciples 
are not a little disposed to boast how confidently 
and fearlessly they could meet the king of terrors. 
Let us consult experience on this head. Have 
christians experienced the fulfilment of the promises 
on which they trusted ? Have infidels made good 
their boasts ? With regard to christians, it is a most 
impressive fact that such a thing has never been 

* CheethKm's Life of Paine. 



352 LECTURE XI. 

known as any one being sorry, in the Jiour of death, 
that he had embraced the Gospel of Christ. We 
have often seen and heard of persons, who had spent 
their days in the careless neglect of religion, most 
bitterly lamenting, when they found themselves near 
to eternity, that they had not been devoted chris- 
tians. It is invariably the case that genuine chris- 
tians, when they look back on their lives, from the 
verge of the grave, are sorry that all their days had 
not been spent in a much more zealous consecration 
to the service of Christ. Professors of religion are 
not unfrequently unhappy when they come to die; 
not because they are, or have been christians, but 
only because they see reason to fear that they have 
not been real christians. This unhappiness arises 
from the consciousness of being too much lil^e those 
who reject the Gospel ; too little under the influence 
of its spirit ; too much under the influence of a 
practical unbelief. And they seek consolation, not 
by endeavouring to banish the Gospel from their 
minds, but by pressing to the feet of Jesus, and 
seeking to have their hearts filled by his Spirit. But 
among all that ever named the name of Jesus, from 
the death of the martyred Stephen, to the present 
hour; the myriads upon myriads of christians, who 
have died under all manner of tortures, and in all 
manner of circumstances, calculated to try the 
strength of their faith ; not a philosopher or pea- 
sant ; not a noble or a beggar ; not a man, woman, 
or child ; was ever known to repent that his pre-^ 
paration to die was that of the faith of Christ. 

On the contrary, it has been the invariable effect 
of the religion of Christ, that those who, in the days 
of health, were evidently devoted to its spirit and 
duties, when death approached, have been enabled 
to await the event with an humble, submissive, and 
cheerful mind, keeping a confident eye ** unto Jesus," 
as the Finisher, as well as Author of their faith. 



L'ECTUKE xr. 353 

They have felt it to be their most precious, their un- 
speakable consolation, that they had been persuaded 
to be christians. Nothing did they look back to 
with such thankfulness, as that, instead of having 
Tived in indifference or infidelity, they had lived a 
life of faith upon the Son of God. They have felt 
that, however solemn, and, to the flesh, painful, was 
death, to them it was not gloomy nor appalling, nor 
any thing to be lamented ; but only a short valley 
in the way to their everlasting and blissful rest with 
God on high. The most timid by nature, have 
stepped down without fear or doubt, believing in 
Jesus, and walking by faith. The affectionate 
parent has found such an accession of strength, in 
the act of separation from a beloved and helpless 
family, as to be enabled cheerfully to take the last 
look, and leave his fatherless children with God. 
The young man, in the prime and promise of his 
years, with every thing that earth could give to make 
life desirable, has had the prospect of a better in- 
heritance presented to his mind with such assurance 
that he had a strong desire *' to depart, and be with 
Christ." The nearer christians have come to eter- 
nity, and the sharper the trial of their faith — the 
nearer have they drawn to Christ ; the more closely 
have they embraced his cross ; the more necessary 
has seemed his death for their sins ; the more pre- 
cious and full of glory the whole plan of redemp- 
tion. Such is the medium statement of the testimony 
furnished by the death-beds of the disciples of Christ, 
when disease, or the suddenness of departure, has not 
prevented them from all testimony whatever. 

But, in innumerable instances, the facts are much 
more positive. It is frequently the ease that dying 
christians, as they draw near to eternity, seem to 
catch the song and share the bliss of heaven. Their 
faith not only delivers them from gloom and fear, 
but fills them with joy and triumph. They are not 

2a 



354 LECTURE %l* 

only supported, but exalted; unspeakably happier 
in the agonies of death, than ever they were in the 
vigour of health. As the body sinks, the spirit rises 
in strength of faith, and confidence of approaching 
glory. A smile of joy plays upon the death-struck 
countenance. The tenderest affection, and the most 
benevolent interest for all around them; earnest 
prayer that sinners may come to Jesus, and that his 
Gospel may be embraced in all the world, occupy 
their latest moments. They die, thanking God, who 
giveth them the victory through Jesus Christ, 

This is no picture of imagination. It is drawn 
from facts which the lecturer has frequently had the 
privilege of witnessing; facts such as have been 
often repeated in the observation of all whose duty 
has led them often to visit and converse with the 
dying, on the subject of religion ; facts, of which 
the domestic history of the Gospel, in all ages, is 
full, and of which no effrontery can attempt a denial. 
Paul, in the near view of a painful death, exclaimed: 
** I am now ready to be offered, and the time of my 
departure is at hand. I have fought a good fight ; 
I have finished my course ; I have kept the faith ; 
henceforth, there is laid up for me a crown of 
righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, 
shall give me at that day, and not to me only, 
but unto all them also that love his appearing."* 
Polycarp, when they would have nailed him to 
the stake, said, '' Let me remain as I am ; for 
He who giveth me strength to sustain the fire, w\\\ 
enable m'e also, without your securing me with nails, 
to remain unmoved in the fire,^' Then, being bound 
for a burnt-offering, he exclaimed, '' O Father, I 
bless thee that thou hast counted me worthy of this 
dav and this hour, to receive my portion in the cup 
. of Christ." Bilney, putting his finger into the flame 
of a candle, on the night before he was burned, re 

* ii. Tim. iv. 6— a. 



LECTURE XI. 355 

peated that promise, *^ When ihou walkest through 
the fire, it shall not burn thee;'* and said, " I con- 
stantly believe that, howsoever the stubble of this 
body shall be vi^asted by it, yet my soul shall be 
purged thereby ; a pain for the time, whereon, not- 
withstanding, followeth joy unspeakable/' Hooper, 
going to the stake, being addressed by a papist in 
the language of condolence, answered, *' Be sorry 
for thyself, and lament thine own wickedness ; for I 
am well, I thank God ; and death, to me, for Christ's 
sake, is welcome." Bishop Bedell, apprehending a 
speedy dissolution, assembled his family, and, with 
many other words, declared : ^' Knowing that I must 
shortly put off this my tabernacle, I know also that 
I have a building of God, a house not made with 
hands, eternal in the heavens. Therefore, to me to 
live is Christ, and to die is gain, which increases my 
desire, even now, to depart, and be with Christ, which 
is far better. I ascend to my Father and your 
Father, to my God and your God, through the all- 
sufficient merits of Jesus Christ, my Redeemer, who 
ever lives to make intercession for me." Fletcher's 
continual exclamation while dying, was, ** God 
is love I God is love r He panted for words to 
express what he felt in the utterance of that pre- 
cious truth. Finley, in the act of departing, used 
such language as this : "A christian's death is 
the best part of his existence." " Blessed be God, 
eternal rest is at hand." *' The Lord hath given me 
the victory. I exult; I triumph. Now I know 
that it is impossible that faith should not triumph 
over earth and hell." '* Lord Jesus, into thy hands 
I commit my spirit ; I do it with confidence, I do it 
with full assurance, I know that thou wilt keep 
that which I have committed to thee."* Said the 

* See ** Deaths of Hume and Finley Compared," by 
Dr. Mason ; in the Tract, No. 190, of the American Tract 
Society. 

2 A 2 



356 LECTURE XI. 

dying Paysor. : ^* While my body is thus tortured, 
the soul is perfectly, perfectly happy and peaceful, 
more than I can possibly express to you. I lie 
here, and feel these convulsions extending higher and 
higher, without the least uneasiness ; but my soul 
is filled with joy unspeakable. I seem to swim in a 
flood of glory, which God pours down upon me. 
And I know, I know that my happiness is but be- 
gun. I cannot doubt that it will last for ever/* 
And what need I say more ? For I should weary 
you to tell of Latimer, and Ridley, and Hooker ; 
of Romaine, and Newton, and Scott; of Swartz, 
and Buchanan, and Martyn ; of Oberlin and 
Richmond; of Evarts and Cornelius; leaders in 
the faith, '' of whom the world was not worthy.'* 
But should we go into the more retired walks of 
christian life, and consult the annals of every vil- 
lage church, and gather out the examples of holy 
patience in suffering, and sublime faith, and deep 
humility, and joy unspeakable in dying, which the 
eye of God has seen among the poor of this world, 
in every age, since the death of Christ ! What a 
cloud of witnesses would compass us about, uniting 
their joyful testimony to Jesus as "• the resurrection 
and the life ;" to the Gospel, as, in all its promises, 
faithful, and '* worthy of all acceptation !*'* 

* A beautiful exhibition of the effects of the Gospel is 
found in the Narrative of the Loss of the Kent East India- 
man, in 1825. The account is given by Major M'Gregor, 
who was not rendered the less capable of observing the 
events he has recorded, or of firmly bearing his part in the 
dangers of that awful crisis, in consequence of having his 
soul kept in peace by the precious hopes of a disciple of 

Christ 

While the ship was burning below, and the magazine 
was every moment expected to blow up, and not a soul, out 
of more than six hundred, had a thought but of pe- 
rishing either by fire or the tempest; while some were 
standing in silent resignation, or stupid insensibility, and 
others were given up to the most frantic despair ; while 



LECTURE xt. ^^^ 

Now let us turn to infidelity. What confirmation 
has resulted from the death-beds of infidels to the 
truth of their faith, and its ability to support and 
comfort the souls of its dying disciples ? Ah ! the 
change is like being translated from the beauty, and 
fragrance, and joyful promise of spring, into the 
coldness, and barrenness, and gloominess of winter. 

Has infidelity ever exhibited a solitary example 
of that high and delightful consolation— that tri- 
umphant, unspeakable joy, on the brink of the 
grave — of which Christianity can cite innumerable 
instances ? It seems almost ridiculous to be at 
pains enough to answer such a question. Infidelity 
has no doctrine, no promise, out of which such a 
delightful frame of mind could grow. Infidels feel 

^'some on their knees were earnestly imploring with signifi- 
cant gesticulations, and in noisy supplications, the mercy of 
Him whose arm, they exclaimed, was at length outstretched 
to smite them ;" and others had sullenly seated themselves 
directly over the magazine, that by means of the expected 
explosion a speedier termination might be put to their suffer- 
ings : " Several of the soldiers' wives and children, who had 
fled for temporary shelter into the after cabins, on the upper 
decks, were engaged in prayer, and in reading the scriptures 
with the ladies, some of whom were enabled, with wonder- 
ful self-possession, to offer to others those spiritual conso- 
lations, which a firm and intelligent trust in the Redeemer 
of the world appeared at this awful hour to impart to their 
own breasts. The dignified deportment of two young ladies 
in particular formed a specimen of natural strength of mind, 
finely modified by christian feeling, that failed not to attract 
the notice and admiration of every one who had an oppor- 
tunity of witnessing it. One young gentleman, having 
calmly asked my opinion of the state of the ship, I told him 
that I thought we should be prepared to sleep that night 
in eternity ; and I shall never forget the peculiar fervour 
with which he replied, as he pressed my hand in his, ^ My 
heart is filled with the peace of God/ " Comment would only 
mar such a beautiful testimony to the blessedness of a gos- 
pel faith, "Thou Vvilt keep him in perfect peace whose 
mind is stayed on thee ; because he trusteth in thee," Isa. 
sxvi. 3. 



358 LECTURE XI. 

themselves so infinitely removed from it, that it seems 
to them in the distance as something incompre- 
hensible, or visionary, or fanatical. But are there 
not examples of such persons dying without fear ? 
Unquestionably there are ; but how few of them 
have any application to the present argument ! The 
great majority of them have been cases in which the 
lethargy or delirium occasioned by disease pre- 
vented the patient from being sensible of his condi- 
tion, or his death succeeded so immediately after 
the symptoms of his danger as to allow no time for 
the consideration of his eternal interests ; or his 
friends took care that he should be kept in ignorance 
of the fatal character of his disorder, until it was too 
late for any thing but insensibility and dissolution ; 
or else the unhappy infidel, suspicious of his sted- 
fastness when the trial should arrive, surrounded 
himself with such companions as would guard his 
bedside from the approach of any minister of better 
consolations, and keep his mind amused with trifles, 
and his pride stimulated with the ambition of hold- 
ing out to the last. Undoubtedly there have been 
cases to which none of these specifications are 
applicable ; cases of infidels, who, in quietness, 
with their intellects in sound and wakeful exercise, 
and with a knowledge of their nearness to eternity, 
have died without the manifestation of alarm. But 
this has nothing to do with our point. We could 
speak of multitudes who believed Christianity, and 
had no idea that they were prepared to meet their 
God, but, nevertheless died without alarm. The 
question is, does infidelity sustain and comfort its 
disciples in the hour of death? It can hardly be 
necessary to assert, that whatever calmness any of them 
may have manifested had nomannerof connection with 
their infidel principles. They might have had the 
same as well without infidelity as with it. They did 
not pretend to draw strength and peace from its 



LECTURE XI. 359 

barren breasts. What was called, in their case, 
resignation, was not the offspring of their principles 
as infidels, but of their doom as mortals. They 
had to die, and there was no use in complaining ; 
this is about the amount of all their consolation. 
Most gladly would they have entreated to live, could 
they have supposed that entreaty would have suc- 
ceeded. Death has never been regarded by such 
men, except as a necessary evil in every respect, 
only to be submitted to because irrevocably ap- 
pointed. Such is the very best account we can 
give of the testimony of the death-beds of infidels. 
It is dreary, desolate, cold. It whispers something 
that should go to the heart of a sceptic. Its dismal 
negativeness is positive condemnation. Where, in 
all this region of emptiness, is the sweet serenity, 
the cheerful resignation, the positive pleasure and 
happiness in prospect of death, which so generally 
attend the dying Christian ? Where is your parallel, 
in a single infidel, to the joyful welcome which 
death has received, in a million cases, at the lips of 
the followers of Christ, when they have felt them- 
selves almost home, and, in vie\y of heaven, have 
longed to depart and be with Christ ? 

No case of a dying unbeliever has been made so 
much of, by way of a set-oii to the testimony of 
Christians, as that of David Hume, The evident 
object of Adam Smith, the narrator, is to put up Tiis 
friend for a comparison with believers. Gibbon 
says, " He died the death of a philosopher.'' No- 
thing can be more affected, more evidently con- 
trived for stage effect, or, even on infidel principles, 
more disgraceful to such a mind as Hume's, than the 
manner of his death, according to the account given 
by his friend. He knew his end was near. Whether 
he was to be annihilated, or to be for ever happy, or 
for ever miserable, was a question involved, on his 
own principles, in impenetrable darkness. It was 



360 LECTURE Xi. 

the tremendous question to be then decided. Rea- 
son and decency demanded that it should be seri- 
ously contemplated. How does he await the 
approach of eternity ? Said Chesterfield (an infidel 
also) : *^ When one does see death near, let th^ 
best or the worst people say what they please, it is a 
serious consideration." Does Hume treat it as a 
serious consideration ? He is diverting himself ! 
With what ? • With preparing his Essay in Defence 
of Suicide for a new edition; reading books of 
amusement ; and sometimes with a game at cards ! 
He is diverting himself again ! With what next ? 
With talking silly stuff about Charon and his boat, 
and the river Styx ! Such are a philosopher's 
diversions, where common sense teaches other people 
to be, at least, grave and thoughtful. But why 
divert himself ? Why turn off his mind from 
death ? Why the need of his writings, and his 
cards, and his books of amusement, and his trifling 
conversations ? Was he afraid to let his mind settle 
down quietly and alone to the contemplation of all 
that was at stake in the crisis before him ? What- 
ever the explanation of his levity, it was ill-timed, 
out of taste, badly got up ; an affected piece of 
over-acting, intended for posthumous fame, to say 
the best of it. He died *' as a fool dieth." Take 
his own views, as thus expressed, at the end of his 
Natural History of Religion : ** The comfortable 
views exhibited by the belief of futurity are ravishing 
and delightful. But how quickly these vanish on the 
appearance of its terrors, which keep a more firm 
and durable possession of the human mind. The 
whole is a riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mys- 
tery. Doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment, 
appear the only result of our most accurate scrutiny 
concerning this subject." In his own estimation, 
then, futurity had its terrors. Doubt, inexplicable 
mystery,Miung over his future destiny! Whether 



LECTURE XI. 361 

lie was not to be a child of hell for ever, his most 
accurate scrutiny could only suspend his judgment !. 
In this tremendous suspense, he plays cards, as it 
were, on his coffin-lid ! jests about ridiculous fables, 
as he steps down to the momentous uncertainties, 
but eternal realities, of the future ! If a finger had 
been about to receive its sentence, whether to be 
amputated or not, he would at the least have been 
more grave. How far such a death-bed scene is 
honourable to philosophy or infidelity, or fit to be 
compared with that of millions of Christians, I need 
not say. But this is the fairest aspect of the matter 
on the side of infidelity.* 

* There is reason to believe, that, however unconcerned 
Hume may have seemed in the presence of his infidel friends, 
there were times when, being diverted neither by companions, 
nor cards, nor his works, nor books of amusement, but left 
to himself and the contemplation of eternity, he was any thing 
but composed and satisfied. 

The following account was published many years ago in 
Edinburgh, where he died. It is not known to have been 
ever contradicted. " About the end of 1776, a few months 
after the historian's death, a respectable looking woman, 
dressed in black, came into the Haddington stage-coach, 
while passing through Edinburgh. The conversation among 
the passengers, which had been interrupted for a few minutes, 
was speedily resumed, which the lady soon found to be 
regarding the state of mind persons were in at the prospect 
of death. An appeal was made, in defence of infidelity, to 
the death of Hume, as not only happy and tranquil, but 
mingled even with gaiety and humour. To this the lady 
said : " Sir, this is all you know about it ; I could tell you 
another tale.'' " Madam," replied the gentleman, " I pre- 
sume I have as good information as you can have on this 
subject, and I believe that what I have asserted regarding 
Mr. Hume has never been called in question." The lady 
continued : " Sir, I was Mr. Hume's housekeeper for many 
years, and was with him in his last moments ; and the 
mourning I now wear was a present from his relatives foi 
my attention to him on his death-bed ; and happy would I 
have been if I could have borne my testimony to the mistaker 
opinion that has gone abroad of his peaceful and composed 
endr^ I have, Sir, never, till this hour, opened my mouth 



362 LECTURE XI. 

We said, the case could not be mentioned of any 
one having regretted on his death-bed that he had 

on this subject ; but I think it a pity the world should be 
kept in the dark on so interesting a topic. It is true, sir, 
that when Mr. Hume's friends were with him he was cheer- 
ful, and seemed quite unconcerned about his approaching 
fate ; nay, frequently spoke of it to them in a jocular and 
playful way ; but when he was alone the scene was very 
different — he was any thing but composed ; his mental agi- 
tation was so great at times as to occasion his whole bed to 
shake. He would not allow the candles to be put out during 
the night, nor would he be left alone for a minute. I had 
always to ring the bell for one of the servants to be in the 
room before he would allow me to leave it. He struggled 
hard to appear composed, even before me. But to one who 
attended his bedside for so many days and nights, and wit- 
nessed his disturbed sleeps, and still more disturbed wak- 
ings; who frequently heard his involuntary breathings of 
remorse, and frightful startings ; it was no difficult matter to 
determine that all was not right within. This continued and 
increased until he became insensible. I hope in God I shall 
never witness a similar scene.'' — Christian Observer, vol. xxxi. 
p. 665. 

There is internal evidence of truth attached to the above. 
Hume had no opinions with regard to God, or the future, 
except that all was doubtful. Whether there was a God, a 
future state, a hell, or annihilation, he did not profess to 
know. The future had its terrors, he acknowledged. To 
him, they were terrors of darkness and uncertainty. He 
spoke of " the calm, though obscure regions of philosophy." 
He called the whole question as to man's future destiny, " a 
riddle, an enigma, an inexplicable mystery.'' All he could 
arrive at was, " doubt, uncertainty, suspense of judgment.'' 
In this state of mind, nothing could have been more forced 
or unnatural than the levity described by Smith. That was 
his stage-dress. If a man lay a hundred pounds upon a 
game, he is anxious till the uncertainty as to its fate be 
removed. But Hume knew that his all, for ever, was at 
stake ; and that he was unconcerned, unanxious, when not 
diverted, is incredible. On the other hand, the account pre- 
sented above is exactly what nature and reason would 
expect from the state of mind in which the philosopher 
described himself, as to all that awaited him. Not to be 
penetrated with anxiety of the most painful kind, when a few 
hours were to decide whether he was to be annihilated, or to 



LECTURE XI. 363 

lived a Christian. We now say, that cases innumer- 
able have occurred of persons bitterly lamenting, 
when dying, that they had lived in infidelity. Every 
where such instances have occurred. They are too 
notorious to need citation. The boldest unbelievers 
have furnished the most numerous examples. They 
have felt every foundation removed, when heart and 
flesh began to fail. What they had boasted in life, 
they found a miserable comforter in death. The 
Earl of Rochester, a scholar and a blasphemer, as 
deep in vice as in infidelity, when he approached the 
end of life, became a thorough penitent, and, to one 
of his former companions, said from his death-bed, 
'^ O, remember that you contemn God no longer ! He 
is an avenging God, and will visit you for your sins ; 
and will, I hope, in mercy touch your conscience, 
sooner or later, as he has done mine. You and I 
have been friends and sinners together a great 
while. We have been all mistaken in our conceits 
and opinions ; our persuasions have been false and 
groundless : therefore I pray God grant you repent- 
ance.*' To those who had been drawn into sin by 
his example and encouragement, he said : *' I warn 
them no more to make a mock of sin, or contemn 
the pure and excellent religion of my ever-blessed 
Redeemer, through whose merits alone I, one of the 
greatest of sinners, do yet hope for forgiveness." 

Hobbes could never bear to talk of death. His 
mind was haunted with tormenting reflections. If 
his candle went out in the night, while he was in 
bed, he was in misery. As he descended to the 

be carried to the judgment-seat of God, and find all that he 
had ridiculed in the Gospel true, and be condemned to eternal 
misery — a destiny which, on his own principles, was as 
likely as any thing else — could only be accounted for on the 
supposition that disease or friends diverted his attention from 
the decision approaching. 

See, also, some striking remarks, by Mr. Foster, in the 
Eclectic Reviewy for January, 1808. 



364 LECTURE XI. 

grave, he said " he was about to take a leap in the 
dark." 

Struensee, prime minister of Denmark, and Brandt, 
the companion of his disgrace and imprisonment, 
had both been poisoned by the writings and society 
of Voltaire ; and both, in prospect of death, re- 
nounced infidelity with detestation, and embraced 
the Gospel as all their hope. 

Shall I lead you to the horrible spectacle of Vol- 
taire, in the arms of death, and expecting in a few 
moments to stand at the bar of God. He has just 
returned from a feast of applause in the theatre, 
to be laid on a bed of death, in the agonies of 
an upbraiding conscience. The physician enters. 
" Doctor," said the apostle of infidelity, with the 
utmost consternation, *' I am abandoned by God 
and man. I will give you half of what I am worth, 
if you will give me six months' life." The physician 
told him he could not live six weeks. " Then," 
said he, " I shall go to hell." His companions in 
guilt, D'Alembert, Diderot, and Marmontel, hasten 
to keep up his courage, but meet nothing but re- 
proach and horror. In spite of the guard of infidels 
about him, he sends for the Abbe Gautier to come 
as soon as possible. In his presence, and that of 
other witnesses, he signs a recantation of infidelity, 
and professes to die in the church. It is sent to 
the rector of St. Sulpice and the archbishop of 
Paris for approval. The Abbe Gautier returns 
with it, but cannot enter. Every avenue to the 
dying infidel is defended by those who had shared 
in his conspiracy against Christianity. They want 
to hide his terrors and their own shame. Now it 
is, that D'Alembert, Diderot, and about twenty 
others, of like character, who beset his apartment, 
never approach him but to hear their condemnation. 
*' Retire !" he often exclaims, with execrations, *' it 
is you that have brought me to my present state ! 



LECTURE XI. 365 

Begone! I could have done without you all ; but you 
could not exist without me ! And what a wretched 
glory have you produced me ?'' Then his conspiracy 
comes before him, and, alternately supplicating and 
blaspheming, he complains that he is abandoned by 
God and man, and often cries out, '* Oh Christ ! 
Oh Jesus Christ !" He is looking on Him whom he 
pierced ! He is drinking the cup of trembling ! the 
foretaste of the second death ! The Mareschal de 
Richelieu flies from the scene, declaring it '' loo 
terrible to be sustained/' The physicians, thunder- 
struck, retire ; declaring " the death of the impious 
man to be terrible indeed/' One of them pro- 
nounces that " the furies of Orestes could give but 
a faint idea of those of Voltaire,''* 

We shall close these awful scenes, with a few 
glances at the dying Paine. Once it was his boast 
that, during a dangerous illness, he thought with 
new satisfaction of having written the Age of Reason, 
and found, by experiment^ that his principles were 
sufficient to sustain him in expectation of death. It 
was an empty boast! Let us see him when really 
dying. He w^ould not be left alone night or day. 
If he could not see that some one was with him, he 
would scream till a person appeared. A female 
attendant more than once found him in the attitude 
of prayer. Having asked her what she thought of 
his Age of Reason, and being answered that, from a 

* " The nurse who attended him, being many years after- 
wards requested to wait on a sick protestant gentleman, 
refused, till she was assured he was not a philosopher; 
declaring, if he were, she would on no account incur the 
danger of witnessing such a scene as she had been compelled 
to do at the death of M. Voltaire. I received this account 
(adds the Right Rev. Daniel Wilson) from the son of the 
gentleman, to whose dying bed the woman was invited, by a 
letter now in my possession/' 

The above account is abridged from the '^ History of 
Jacobinism," by the Abbe Baruel, and has been denied by 
no one of the many witnesses to the death of Voltaire. 



366 LECTURE XI. 

conviction of its evil tendency, she had burnt it ; he 
wished all its readers had been as wise, and added : 
*' If ever the devil had an agent on earth, I have 
been one." An infidel visiter said to him, " You 
have lived like a man; I hope you will die like one." 
He turned to others in the room, and said, *' You 
see what miserable comforters I have." The woman 
whom he had enticed from her husband lamented 
to a neighbour her sad condition. ** For this man," 
she said, " 1 have given up my family and my 
friends, my property and my religion ; judge then of 
my distress, when he tells me that the principles 
he has taught me will not bear me out." Well 
might she be distressed, when she heard his excla- 
mauons. '* He would call out, during his paroxysms 
of distress, without intermission, ' O Lord help me, 
Ood help me, Jesus Christ help me, O Lord help 
me,' &c., repeating the same expressions without 
any the least, variation, in a tone of voice that 
would alarm the house."* 

And now what need be said in conclusion ? You 
have seen the fruit of the trees. One produces 
corruption ; the other holiness of life. One roots 
up; the other nourishes and cherishes whatever is 
good around it. The spread of infidelity is that of 
vice, and disorder, and all confusion, the spread 
of Christianity is that of purity, peace, and all the 
virtues of the social state, the more thoroughly 
an individual embraces infidelity, the more entirely 
does he become the slave of sin. The more perfectly 
he embraces the Gospel, the more perfectly does he 
become the example of whatever is lovely and of 
good report. No infidel ever rose higher than the 
chill composure of a stoic's firmness, in the trial of 
death. Multitudes, and the chief of infidels, have, in 
that honest hour, abandoned their sentiments with 
horror. On the other hand, no christian ever re- 

♦ Cheetham's Life of Paine. 



LECTURE xr. 367 

gretted, when dying, that hje had believed the 
Gospel ; all have only wished they had followed it 
more diligently; and, in cases innumerable, disciples 
of Christ have risen to the most triumphant emotions 
of joy and praise, and the most exulting assurance of 
eternal life and glory, in the very act of departing for 
eternity. 

Is a tree known by its fruits ? Then which of 
these is the tree of life ? Which looks like truth ? 
Which is to be cut down, and cast into the ever- 
lasting burning? 

The whole argument, of this and the preceding 
lecture, may be well concluded with an applicable 
and true saymg of Hume. Being asked by a friend, 
to whom he used to refer his essays, previously to 
publication, whether he thought that, if his opinions 
were universally to take place, mankind would not 
be rendered more unhappy than they were; and 
whether he did not suppose that the curb of religion 
was necessary to human nature; ** The objections," 
answered he, *^ are not without weight, but error 
NEVER CAN PRODUCE GOOD." Such is prcciscly the 
text of this and the preceding lecture. *' Do men 
gather grapes of thorns, or figs of thistles V " The 
tree is known by its fruits," said the Saviour. 
'* Error never can produce good," said the man who 
denied him. By this, let the comparative merits of 
Christianity and infidelity stand or fall. 

How imperative then, is the exhortation to all 
professors of the religion of Jesus : '* Let your light 
shine before men !" '* Be careful to maintain good 
works !" ** Let your conversation be as it becometh 
the Gospel of Christ!" To you, is committed the 
honour, — on you, depends the character of Chris- 
tianity among the unbelieving and disobedient. Its 
most legible and universally imposing evidences are 
found in the living epistles of those who, under the 
influence of its saving truth, are seen devotedly 



368 LECTURE XI. 

'' following after righteousness, godliness, faith, love, 
patience, meekness;" '* using the world, as not 
abusing itf' looking for death, as not fearing it; 
cheerful in all duty, while they remain on earth; 
happy when the time comes for them to depart out 
of it unto the Father. Ah ! if all that are numbered 
among christians were thus radiant in the beauty of 
holiness, how soon would the whole earth be filled 
with the praise of the Lord ! Then, indeed, would 
the church put on strength. Then would the 
Gentiles come to her light, and kings to the bright- 
ness of her rising ; all they that despise her should 
bow themselves down at the soles of her feet ; and 
they should call her, '' The city of the Lord; the 
Zion of the Holy One of Israel.*'* 



LECTURE XI L 

SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT, AND APPLICATION 

TO OBJECTIONS. 

In the course of the preceding lectures, I have been 
enabled, by a kind Providence blessing me with a 
more adequate measure of health than t anticipated, 
to spread before you a comprehensive view of the 
external evidences of Christianity. Although one 
whole division of our forces, and one of no secondary 
consequence, has not been brought into the field ; 
and of that which has been employed, several im- 
portant subdivisions have been held in the back 
ground for want of room to display them ; enough, I 
trust, has been done to give you an impressive idea 
of what the strength of the cause must be, when all 
the immense variety of auxiliaries composing its host 
are arranged together under the command of a mind 
capable of using them to the best advantage. It 

* Isaiah Ix. 



LECTURE XII. 369 

would stand, like the massive squares of British 
infantry at Waterloo, to which the boasting enemy 
rode up again and again, in the full confidence of 
sweeping them before the impetuosity of their charge. 
But " their onset and reception was that of a furious 
ocean pouring itself against a chain of insulated 
rocks."* 

Before relinquishing our course, it is important 
to take a brief retrospect of the ground we have 
been over ; that we may gather into united and 
co-operating force, the several lines of argument 
which as yet have been employed only in their 
separate efficiency. 

After having divided the whole field of evidence 
into the two general departments of external and 
internal, and separated the former, as that to which 
our course would be confined, we proceeded to lay 
the foundation of all our subsequent reasonings by 
making good the authenticity of the books of 

THE NEW TESTAMENT, and the CREDIBILITY OF THE 

HISTORY contained therein. In reference to the 
question of authenticity, we instituted an inquiry 
whether there is sufficient evidence that the several 
scriptures composing the New Testament were written 
by the men whose names they bear, the original apos- 
tles and disciples of Christ ? For an answer to this, 
we pursued precisely the same method as in deter- 
mining the authenticity of any other writings. The 
evidence required in such investigations was shown 
to be so unaffected by time, that whether a book 
be ascribed to the christian era or to five centuries 
earlier or later, a similar description of proof vi^ould 
possess a similar conclusiveness. That for the 
authenticity of the books of the New Testament was 
presented under the following heads : they are 
quoted or alluded to by a series of writers' ex- 
tending, in unbroken succession, from the present 

* Scott's Napoleon. 
2 B 



370 LECTURE XII. 

to the apostolic age. In the earliest writers of this 
series, as well as the later, they are treated with 
peculiar respect, as possessing an authority belong- 
ing to no other books, and as conclusive in all 
questions of religion ; they were collected at a very 
early period into a distinct volume ; were publicly 
i-ead and expounded in the assemblies of the primi- 
tive christians; commentaries v/ere written upon 
them ; harmonies were formed out of them ; dif- 
ferent copies were carefully compared, and versions 
were made into different languages, in the first cen- 
turies of Christianity. Hence it appeared, that the 
agreement of the ancient church, as to what were 
the authentic books of the New Testament, was 
complete, and was no more imperfect among the 
various sects of heretics, than among the orthodox 
fathers. None of these several heads of evidence 
attach to any of those spurious writings commonly 
caWed Apocryphal Scriptures; while the marks of 
the spuriousness of these can be asserted with regard 
to none of those which are esteemed as authentic. 
In confirmation of the mass of testimony, adduced 
in support of these propositions, we exhibited a most 
important collection of proofs from the writings of 
the early adversaries of Christianity. The style and 
language of the New Testament were spoken of, as 
in perfect agreement with the local and other cir- 
cumstances of its reputed writers ; as in perfect 
harmony with their known character, and with the 
age and country in which they lived ; and such as 
could not have been produced in any age subse- 
quent to theirs. In conclusion of the whole argu- 
ment, we endeavoured to show that such was the 
necessity of detection, in case of a forgery, during 
the primitive centuries, that, had the books in 
question been deficient in the evidence of apostolic 
^origin, nothing less than atniracle in their aid could 
account for their early and universal currency. The 



LECTURE XII. 371 

whole train of evidence concluded with this result : 
that to suppose the New Testament unauthentic 
or even questionable in this particular, is to resign 
the authenticity of every ©ther book of the least 
antiquity ; yea, and the sufficiency of human 
testimony, in its most conclusive form, to establish 
the authenticy of any such work. Having come to 
this, it seemed no presumption to proceed in our 
subsequent lectures, as if the question of authen- 
ticity were answered in the affirmative with entire 
satisfaction. 

But in connection with the apostolic origin, it was 
important to look into the integrity of the New Tes- 
tament scriptures ; for the purpose of ascertaining 
to what extent they have been preserved without 
mutilation or corruption. That they have under- 
gone no material alteration since they were first 
published, was inferred from the perfect impossibility 
of such a change; from obvious agreement among 
the existing manuscripts of the New Testament ; 
and from the harmony of our present text with the 
numerous quotations in the works of early christian 
writers, and with those ancient translations which are 
still extant. 

But in laying the foundation of our subsequent 
argument, another question remained; Is the his- 
tory, contained in these authentic writings, credible? 
Is it so true that what it relates, as matter of fact, 
is worthy of entire reliance as matter of fact, inde- 
pendently of all inferences or doctrines connected 
therewith ? In answer to this, we assumed, that the 
credibility of the Gospel history is to be ascertained 
precisely like that of any other history. It appeared 
that, in questions of this kind, the two great points 
to be proved are, a competency of knowledge, and 
trustworthy honesty, on the part of the historian ; 
did he know enough to write a true account, and 
was he too honest to write any other account than 

2 B 2 



372 LECTURE XII. 

such as he beheved to be true? These points 
established, the credibiHty of the history is settled. 
The first was easily determined by the consideration 
that the amount of knowledge required for the 
writing of the Gospel history was by no means 
great ; that the narrative is extremely simple and 
unambitious; and that those who penned it were 
personal companions of Christ, and eye-witnesses of 
almost all they related. In reference to the second 
point to be made out, we took the position that there 
is abundant evidence that the writers of the Gospel 
history were too honest to relate any thing hut what 
they believed to be truth. Taking the history as 
written by St. John for a specimen, we discovered 
a strong internal evidence of the honesty of the 
writer, in the fact that it is in a high degree circum- 
stantial ; and another, in the incidental charac- 
teristic of the writer, that he takes no pains to con- 
vince us of his honesty ; and makes no parade about 
it, as if it were possible to be suspected ; and an- 
other, in the circumstance, that while he could not 
have been ignorant that he was relating many ex- 
traordinary and wonderful events, he betrays no 
appearance of wonder in himself, nor any expecta- 
tion of wonder from his readers, thus evincing that 
he was conscious of narrating events of universal 
notoriety. In addition to these striking imprints of 
honesty ; we perceived another, in the minute 
accuracy which distinguishes all the allusions of this 
narrative to the manners, customs, opinions, political 
events, and circumstances of the times. 

Having thus exhibited satisfactory evidence of 
the honesty of one of the writers of the Gospel 
narrative; we produced seven other writers, each 
entirely independent of the rest, and possessing all 
the internal marks of honesty discovered in St. 
John ; all concurring in their statements so entirely 
that no contradiction can be detected ; and yet with 



LECTURE XII. 373 

SO much incidental variety, that the suspicion of 
a concerted scheme for mutual support is as unrea- 
sonable as if they had lived in different centuries. 
The fact that they were heartily interested in the 
Gospel ; that they so firmly believed what they 
wrote, as to have lived in zealous devotion to Christ, 
to the sacrifice of life, was shewn to be the strongest 
confirmation, instead of the least abridgment of their 
united testimony. In their co-operating evidence, 
we have a proof of the honesty of each writer, and 
of the credibility of the whole body of facts con- 
tained in their pages, such as no history of any indi- 
vidual of the world can equal. Four histories 
written by persons contemporaneous with the sub- 
ject, are only found in the case before us. When it 
is considered that the authors were not only con- 
temporaries but companions of the personage whose 
history is given ; their mutual support and internal 
evidences of honesty afford a body of proof which, 
were their narratives untrue, would be morally im- 
possible. 

Here, we might have left the question of credi- 
bility. But we proceeded to show, that to suppose 
these writers to have published what they did not 
believe, is to suppose that they acted not only with- 
out any conceivable motive, but in direct opposition 
to all the motives by which the minds of men are 
ever influenced. And, finally, it was made to ap- 
pear that the Gospel history has in its support, not 
only all the testimony that could fairly have been 
expected from its enemies, all of them yielding at 
least the evidence of silence, when, had they been 
able, they would assuredly have published a denial ; 
but much stronger testimony than could fairly have 
been expected from enemies, since several of their 
most hostile writers positively acknowledge all the 
facts that are necessary to establish the divine 
authority of Jesus. But this was not our highest 



374 LECTURE XII. 

reach of testimony. We found a great cloud of wit- 
nesses to the truth of this history in the multitudes 
converted to the Gospel under the preaching of the 
apostles: witnesses who have this peculiar excel- 
lence, that, from having once been enemies, they 
became devoted friends, by the mere force of their 
conviction of the facts in question. The whole 
argument for credibility was finished by showing, 
from the very nature and circumstances of the his- 
tory, that, had it not been true, its currency for a 
single year would have been quite as miraculous, 
and more unaccountable, than any thing related 

therein. 

Having thus cleared our way to the New Testa- 
ment, by ascertaining the authenticity of its books, 
and the credibility of its history ; we were prepared 
to open the volume, and investigate its contents. It 
professes to contain a revelation from God, commu- 
nicated to mankind by the Lord Jesus and his apos- 
tles, as invested with a divine commission for this 
very purpose. We asked for their credentials. 
They referred us to their miraculous works. The 
appeal was confessedly fair. Miracles perfectly 
proved, are perfect evidence of divine attestation. 
But, before proceeding to a direct investigation of 
the testimony in favour of the miracles of the Gos- 
pel, we found it necessary, on account of the des- 
perate efforts which enemies of Christianity have 
made to escape this argument, to illustrate the fol- 
lowing preliminary truths: that there is nothing 
unreasonable or improbable in the idea of a miracle 
in proof of divine revelation ; — ^that the miracles 
wrought for this purpose, in the first century, can be 
credible to us in the nineteenth, by no other evi- 
dence than that of testimony ; that such evidence 
is perfectly sufficient to prove a miracle ; that the 
testimony to the Gospel miracles has suffered no 
diminution of force by increase of age ; and that 



LECTURE XII. 375 

we, who are restricted to such means of conviction, 
are more favourably situated in examining the evi-^ 
dences of Christianity, than if we had been present 
when the miracles were wrought, and could have 
proved their reality by the test of our senses. 

From these important propositions, we proceeded 
to the testimony in regard to the miracles of the 
GOSPEL. Here we might have stood upon the just 
claim that, in having established the truth of the 
narratives, we had proved also the miracles, of the 
New Testament; inasmuch as miraculous events 
are so essentially interwoven with m.any of them, 
that to question the miracle is necessarily a ques- 
tioning of the narrative. But as our object was not 
merely proof, but variety and fulness of proof, we 
proceeded to the fact, that the religion of the Bible 
having been established by direct appeal to miracle, 
in evidence of the divine authority of its teachers, 
stands alone in this respect among the various re- 
ligions of mankind ; after which, we laid out the 
materials of our argument under the following pro- 
positions. Supposing the wonderful works ascribed 
to our Lord to have really occurred, they cannot be 
ascribed to second causes, but must have been 
genuine miracles. They were of such a nature as 
admitted of their being brought at once to the test 
of the senses. They were performed, for the most 
part, in the most public manner. They were ex- 
ceedingly numerous, and of great variety. The suc- 
cess, in every case, was instantaneous and complete. 
There is no evidence of such a thing, as an attempt 
on the part of Christ or his apostles to perform a 
miracle in which they were accused of a failure. 
For seventy years, the miraculous gifts in question 
continued to be exercised, and to be submitted to 
the inspection of mankind. During all this time, it 
is a matter of certainty that they underwent the 
rnost rigid examination from those who had every 



376 LECTURE XII. 

opportunity and every disposition to detect imposi- 
tion. Every advantage was afforded the adversary 
by their being published and appealed to immedi- 
ately after, and in the very places where, they oc- 
curred. The persons who performed them were, of 
all others, the least qualified, and the least likely, 
either to attempt a series of counterfeit miracles, or 
to succsed in passing them upon the Jewish and 
heathen world. Notwithstanding all that was done, 
to break the constancy and extort the confessions of 
those early christians who were eye-witnesses of the 
deeds of Jesus and his apostles ; none were ever 
known to acknowledge they had been deceived, or 
had found any thing but truth in the miracles by 
which they were led to embrace the Gospel. The 
benevolent character and holy effects of the miracles, 
the humble, self-denying, unambitious spirit of those 
who performed them, are irreconcileable with the sup- 
position of any thing selfish or deceitful. That they 
were genuine, and to the people of that century un- 
deniable, we have the plainest and strongest con- 
fession from the primitive adversaries of Christ and 
his cause. But confessions stronger, unspeakably, 
are found in the history of great multitudes in 
Judea, and every country of heathenism, who beheld 
in them such incontrovertible certainty as induced 
them to lay aside the bitterest enmity to the Gospel, 
and make the most painful sacrifices of which 
human nature is capable, for the sake of embracing 
the service of Jesus. If with all this evidence, there 
is not reason to rely implicitly upon the reality of the 
Gospel miracles, we are driven to believe in the most 
unaccountable violations of the laws of nature, of 
truth, and of common sense, as necessary to account 
for the singular events connected with their per- 
formance, and for their universal acknowledgment 
in the era of their first publication. Hence it was 
concluded, that the Credentials of Jesus and his 



LECTURE XII. 377 

apostles were given from heaven ; and, consequently, 
that the New Testament, as an authentic record of 
what they delivered, is the hook of the revelation 
of God, 

Here, with perfect safety, might the cause have 
been considered as determined. But, unwilling to 
content ourselves with once establishing the divine 
authority of the Gospel, the argument was com- 
menced anew, substituting prophecy for miracle, 
as the source of evidence. Considerations were 
stated, which render the argument from prophecy 
especially valuable : such as the continual increase of 
its strength, and the important characteristic of many 
predictions, that their fulfilment, being a matter of 
present existence, is evidence before our eyes- 
addressed to our senses. Before proceeding to the 
proof of fulfilment, the fact that all other religions 
have shrunk from attempting such dangerous ground 
as the publication of prophecy, and yet that, how- 
ever certain of exposure in case of imposition, it is 
every where appealed to, and rested upon, in the 
Bible, was treated as a strong presumptive argument 
that in the Bible is found — what no false religion 
can possess — something to warrant it in venturing 
where divine omniscience alone is able to tread — 
inspiration of God, We then glanced at the im- 
mense extent, and vast embrace, and wonderful 
minuteness, which characterize the scheme of scrip- 
ture prophecy ; the many ages included ; the variety 
of agents employed ; the numerous particulars pre- 
dicted ; and the harmony of all the details. The 
undeniable fact was asserted, that between the least 
prediction of the Bible, and any event of history, 
there is not the smallest evidence of contradiction. 
We then demanded whether it \^ere credible that 
imposture would ever have dared to commit its cause 
to a venture which could terminate successfully only 
by such a hopeless series of miraculous coincidences 



378 LECTURE XII. 

With all this presumptive evidence on our side, 
we took up a brief selection of important prophecies, 
and shewed their minute and wonderful fulfilment, 
from sources of testimony to which there could 
be no exception. Your attention was especially di- 
rected to a great variety of predictions, by different 
writers, and in all ages of Bible history, all center- 
ing in Jesus, and determining the time and circum- 
stances of his advent ; the character of his life ; the 
particulars of his sufferings and death ; foretellmg 
his resurrection, and the increase of his kingdom. 
After having thus showed the fulfilment of prophe- 
cies of which Jesus was the subject, we proceeded 
to others of which Jesus was the author. 

In the destruction of Jerusalem, and its subsequent 
history ; we had, prepared to our hands in the writ- 
ings of unbelievers, a most impressive accomplish- 
ment of a series of predictions on the part of our 
Lord, in which the utmost plainness of meaning is 
united with singular minuteness of detail. The 
agreement between the predictions and the events 
admitted of no denial. The supposition of chance 
was the only explanation to which unbelief could 
flee. But it was stated, on the authority of strict 
arithmetical calculation, that, according to the prin- 
ciples employed in the computation of what are 
called chances, the probability against the occurrence 
at the predicted time, of all the particulars embraced 
in the prophecies of which we had spoken, exceeded 
the power of numbers to express ; even without the 
consideration of the providence of One who hatelh 
iniquity, and esoecially when it is practised under 
pretence of his 'authority. The conclusion was in- 
evitable—that the Bible, in thus containing so many 
genuine prophecies, scattered through its several 
books, contains revelation from God, and exhibits 
satisfactory evidences of divine authority ; and that 
Jesus Christ, being in his character and office, as 



LECTURE XII. 379 

the Saviour of sinners, the great theme of this sys- 
tem of prophecy, and being himself endued with the 
spirit of prophecy, was, and is to come, no other 
than what he claimed to be considered, the Son of 
God, the Redeemer of men, King of kings, and Lord 
of lords. 

Here, again, we might have rested our cause. But 
unwilling to withhold the interesting evidence re- 
maining ; we commenced the main question anew, 
and set out to prove the divine original, from the 
history of the propagation or Christianity. 
The difficulties in the way of its extensive progress 
were manifest from considering that the enterprise 
of propagating a new religion, to the exclusion of 
every other, was perfectly novel, and universally 
offensive ; that the whole character of the Gospel, as 
a system of doctrine and a rule of life, erected a 
barrier against its progress, which, to human force, 
would have proved insurmountable ; that it neces- 
sarily arrayed against itself all the influence of every 
priesthood; all the powers of every government; 
all the prejudices, habits, and passions of every peo- 
ple ; and all the pride, wit, and influence of every 
school of philosophy in the world. Add to this, 
that the character of the age was peculiarly adapted 
to increase the difficulties above mentioned, and to 
put the truth of such a religion as that of the Gos- 
pel to the very closest and strongest trial. The 
agents entrusted with the propagation of Christianity 
were of all others most unfitted for their work, on 
the supposition that it was one of imposture. They 
set up their banner when every thing visible on their 
side only tended to inspire them with despair, and 
every thing on the side of their enem.ies was con- 
sidered as triumphant. The mode they adopted was 
directly calculated, on human principles, to increase 
and multiply all their difficulties. They were en- 
countered every where by the fiercest persecution 



380 LECTURE XII. 

that the malignant ingenuity of enemies could invent, 
and the principalities and powers of the earth could 
execute. In spite of all these enormous combina- 
tions of resistance, such was the rapid and mighty 
progress of the Gospel, that, in thirty years, the 
Roman empire was every where pervaded with its 
influence, and even haughty Rome could yield a 
great multitude as her first-fruits for the fires of per- 
secution. The conversions, which ensued in such 
numbers, were not changes merely of opinion, but of 
heart and life ; they involved individuals of all 
classes of mind, of learning, of rank, and of opu- 
lence. Nothing in any degree corresponding to 
this work had ever been known before, or has ever 
been witnessed since ; even though efforts have fre- 
quently been made, in circumstances and with means, 
ou the supposition that the apostles were not spe- 
cially favoured of God, much more advantageous 
than theirs. All these particulars combined, demon- 
strate that, in the labours of the apostles, none but 
*' God gave the increase ^^ because none but God 
could give such increase. They present a miracle 
as unquestionable, as if a rock should open at the 
bidding of a man, and become a fountain of water. 

Thus, a third time, did we finish our proof. 
Here, again, might the argument have been safely 
terminated. But the truits of Christianity pre- 
sented a source of additional evidence, too impor- 
tant to be omitted. We began in this department 
with the effects of Christianity on society in general. 
We surveyed the moral condition of mankind when 
the Gospel era commenced. The most polished, 
literary, and admired nations of the ancient world 
were selected as, at least, favourable specimens of 
all the others. Their personal, domestic, and social 
virtues were placed in comparison with those of 
civilized nations of the present age, and especially 
with those which christian influence has most 



LECTURE XII. 381 

thoroughly pervaded. The contrast was exceed- 
ingly impressive. The moral improvements effected 
in society have been immense and inestimable. 
We found nothing in the philosophy, or the religion, 
or the fluctuations, or any other ingredient of the 
heathen or infidel world, to effect such a change. 
No heathen nation, left to itself, has ever reformed. 
The history of the world demonstrates that the 
whole work must be charged to Christianity. The 
history of christian effort, among heathen nations of 
the present age, demonstrates that she was capable, 
and ever will be capable, of accomplishing such 
blessed results. 

From the effects of Christianity on society in gene- 
ral, we turned to those produced on the character 
and happiness of her genuine disciples. Undeni- 
able and innumerable transformations in moral cha- 
racter and habits were pointed out, which are ut- 
terly incapable of explanation, but on the suppo- 
sition of a divine power accompanying the Gospel, 
A comparison was drawn between the lives of 
genuine disciples of Christ, and those for which 
unbelievers are notorious. Another was instituted 
between the death- bed scenes and testimonies of 
real christians, and such as have been witnessed 
in connexion with infidelity. It appeared that, 
with a few exceptions, individuals are the slaves 
of sin, in proportion as they become devoted to in- 
fidelity ; while it was equally evident that, without 
any exception, they become servants of righteous- 
ness, in proportion as their hearts are surrendered 
to the influence of the Gospel. It appeared that 
while, on the one hand, no unbeliever ever ad- 
vanced beyond the negative and comfortless com- 
posure of a stoic, under the trial of death, and 
multitudes, and the very chief of their profession, 
have, in that hour, abandoned their sentiments with 
horror ; it was never heard, on the other hand, 



382 LECTURE XII. 

that a Christian regretted, in his death, havings 
believed and obeyed the Gospel ; while innumerable 
disciples of that blessed faith have risen, in the very 
act of dissolution, to the most triumphant assurance 
of eternal life and glory. Such are the legitimate 
fruits of the Gospel of Christ. 

On the wise principle, therefore, that " a corrupt 
tree cannot bring forth good fruit," we must pro- 
nounce Christianity good ; and> since no religion can 
be good without being true, or, as Hume expressed 
it, ** error never can 'produce good,'' we must con- 
clude that her assertion of divine authority is worthy 
of all acceptation. Thus terminated the argument 
of the last lecture. 

And now, while the retrospect we have been 
taking is fresh in your memories, consider, 

Ist^ The flamness and simplicity which charac- 
terize the evidences of Christianity. To understand 
the meaning, and appreciate the force, of any or all 
of them, so far as is necessary to a clear, intelligent, 
and impressive conviction of the divine inspiration of 
the Scriptures, and the divine nature and mission of 
the Lord Jesus Christ, is a work to which the mind 
of any thoughtful, serious, individual of ordinary in- 
formation is competent. Willingness to read, readi- 
ness to learn, humility to submit to conviction, and 
ordinary knowledge of the meaning of words, are the 
only requisites for a satisfactory investigation of the 
whole argument. How different, in this respect, is 
the system of Christ from all the speculating and 
metaphysical systems of infidel philosophy ! What 
would a plain common-sense people do, did their 
understanding of the grounds of faith and duty de- 
pend upon such dark questions, as the sufficiency of 
the light of nature, the origin of evil, the metaphy- 
sical relations of cause and effect, the foundation of 
virtue, the elements of accountability, the freedom of 
the will, &c. ; questions which must be settled in 



LECTURE XII. 383 

our own minds, and by our own reason, before we 
can consistently embrace any other religion than that 
of revelation; but about which all the philosophy on 
earth, if it reject the Scriptures, may speculate to the 
end of time, without arriving at sufficient certainty 
to satisfy a single conscience. The Gospel requires 
no abstract theories, to explain its way of salvation, 
its principles of obligation, or its rule of duty. It 
simply presents the evidence that Jesus Christ, the 
Son and the Sent of God, came into the world to 
teach and to save sinners ; and then, for every 
sinner, publishes this plain direction. What Jesus in 
his word has taught, believe ; what he has there 
commanded, follow ; and, through his righteousness ^ 
thou shalt be saved, 

2d. Consider the great variety and accumulation 
of the evidences of Christianity. In the lectures to 
which you have listened, were presented no less than 
four independent and complete methods of proof, 
each of which is amply sufficient to bear the whole 
weight of the Gospel. The argument from miracles 
is conclusive without the argument from prophecy. 
The latter is in no wise dependent upon the former, 
or any that succeeded it. The argument from the 
propagation is complete in itself, as well as that 
from the fruits of Christianity. But under each of 
these general heads, what a boundless variety of 
auxiliary evidences might have been adduced ! 
Every single miracle, every fulfilled prophecy, a 
thousand separate facts in the spread of the Gospel, 
and innumerable examples of its holy fruits in the 
hearts and lives of believers, would have furnished 
us with so many effulgent centres, in all of which 
rays of brilliant evidence are continually meeting, and 
harmonizing in a shining testimony to Jesus, as the 
resurrection and the life. 

_ But remember that one whole division, out of the 
two which embrace the field of evidence, has been 



384 LECTURE XII. 

left untouched. We have found an astonishing 
variety and accumulation of proof; and yet the 
whole department of internal evidence, that 
which arises from the search of the New Testament 
itself— its spirit, manner, dress, and beauty— the 
simplicity of its character; the benevolence of its 
temper ; its power over the conscience ; the suitable- 
ness of its contents to the wants of man ; the excel- 
lence of its doctrines ; the purity and elevation of its 
morals; the character and conduct of Jesus, and the 
happy tendency of all his instructions ; this immense 
field of diversified evidence, secondary to none in its 
influence upon the mind, and superior to all in its 
direct appeal to the heart, we have not so much as 
entered. Could we but see all the separate streams 
united in one ; could we measure at once the force 
of that majestic tide which collects its innumerable 
tributaries from all ages, and all nations, and all 
hearts ; could we appreciate its strength by an ac- 
curate estimate of all the obstructions with which 
earth and hell, " the prince of the power of the air," 
and " the rulers of the darkness of this world," have 
endeavoured to resist its course — the mountains of 
difficulty which, in every century, it has rent 
asunder, or rolled away to clear its course; we 
should wonder, indeed, at what Divine Goodness 
has done to make us believers, and at what human 
obduracy has been able to withstand for the purpose 
of continuing in unbelief. 

But this astonishing flood of evidence is per- 
petually increasing. Every additional benefit which 
Christianity bestows upon any portion of mankind ; 
every additional conversion of a sinner to God ; 
every holy life that is added to the shining ranks of 
the followers of Christ ; every new triumph of christian 
faith over the trials of life and the terrors of death ; 
every increase in the fulfilment of prophecy ; every 
advance in the cQnquest of the Gospel over the 



LECTLRfci xn. 385 

darkness of paganism ; every new year of vicioiy 
over all the resistance of pretended friends and un- 
faithful professors, and internal divisions, and infidel 
enmity, is a new stream to swell the many waters, 
which one day, like the deluge of old, will drown 
unbelief in its last refuge, and make all nations and 
kindreds know how precious, as an ark of safety, is 
He who " came into the world to save sinners/* 

But who can ask for additional evidence ? Did 
not the question affect the darling idols of the heart; 
were it one of property, or of science, or of humau 
life ; were it some new medicinCj to heal the mala- 
dies of the body, that laid before us this immense 
mass of credentials from all generations ; or were it a 
scheme for the acquisition of earthly gain that came 
to us accompanied with such voluminous evidence of 
its unfailing truth and wisdom ; no man of common 
sense could hesitate a moment to give it his un- 
qualified belief. All men are continually commit- 
ting their dearest interests to evidence unspeakably 
inferior. We intrust our lives to the care of physi- 
cians, of whose skill, and wisdom, and carefulness, 
and honesty, we have no assurance comparable to 
our proof of Jesus, as the only Physician to save our 
souls, and as that all-sufficient One, in whose hands 
none can perish. We believe, without a question, 
in all the great events of history ; and yet their evi- 
dence is so inconsiderable in comparison with that 
of the Gospel, that if you take away, as uri- 
established, the great pillars of the argument of* 
Christianity, you pronounce the whole foundation of 
historical knowledge, unestablished ; yea, you rob 
mankind of the whole fruit of human testimony, 
and write terra incognita over almost the whole 
map of the generations and things of the universe. 

III. How impressive to the mind of every human 
being ^ should the evidences of Christianity appear, 
if he take up any system of faith which men have 

2 c 



386 LECTURE XII. 

ever attempted to substitute for the Gospel, and com- 
pare its evidences, how immediately is it confounded 
by the contrast ! If he attempt to set aside any one 
of the key-stones on which the noble fabric of 
Christianity is supported, how immediately are his 
efforts defeated , and his weapons broken '• He may 
invent difficulties, but the arguments of the Gospel 
he cannot answer. What, then, is the condition ot 
the inquirer ? The religion of Christ, thus solemnly 
and impressively attested, declares him a sinner 
before a just and holy God ; condemned, under 
sentence of the divine law, to eternal retribution 
and wo. It tells him, that except he repent, he 
must perish ; except he believe in and follow Jesus, 
as his iMaster and only Hope, he cannot be delivered 
from condemnation. It declares, on the other hand, 
that if he repent and believe on the Lord Jesus 
Christ, he shall be saved ; the sting of death will be 
taken away ; an inheritance will be given him " that 
is incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not 
away." All this comes to him under the sanction ot 
evidences innumerable; for none of which is he 
provided with an answer. History informs him that 
the best and wisest men of all ages have consiuered 
those evidences incontrovertible. Immense multi- 
tudes assure him, that in embracing the Gospel they 
have experienced the truth of its promises, and 
realized the holy and happy influence of its doc- 
trines. The probability, to say the very least, must 
seem immense, even to a sceptic, that should he 
reject Christianity, he would reject the truth of God, 
and incur eternal r.iin. While the certainty is evi- 
dent, that should he embrace it, not only would he 
suffer no loss in case it should prove untrue, but he 
would gain many precious consolations in this life, 
of which infidelity is entirely barren. lu these 
circumstances, how serious is the crisis, when he is 
makiri"- the choice whether to be an infidel Or a 



LECTURE XII. 387 

christian ! Does he decide for infidelity ? He can 
gain nothing ; he certainly loses much ; and if the 
Gospel be true, he loses all for ever. Does he 
decide for Christianity ? He can lose nothing ; 
he certainly gains a great deal ; and if infidelity 
prove to be true, he has nothing to regret but 
that truth and happiness should be so directly 
at war. 

Then what a step does he take, who, notwith- 
standing all the evidences of the religion of Jesus, 
determines upon its denial ? What solemnity and 
carefulness of investigation ; what candour and 
impartiality of judgment ; what jealousy over one*s 
own inclinations and prejudices ; what long and 
patient consideration ; what earnest prayer for 
divine guidance and help, should precede such a 
decision ! One would suppose that at least the 
maturest knowledge, and the coolest temperament, 
and the most sober hours, would be waited for, 
before coming to a point on which such tremendous 
consequences are suspended. What, then, is our 
amazement to see the stupid ignorance, or the 
senseless levity, or the lazy thoughtlessness, or the 
intemperate enmity, with which this momentous 
decision is almost always made ! How many be- 
come infidels, not only without candid investiga- 
tion, but without any serious thinking ; without so 
much as an inquiry ; without even a decent so- 
briety of mind. To such persons, I know not a 
more alarming occupation than that of reading a 
well-ordered exhibition of the evidences of Chris- 
tianity. 

Have the evidences of the christian religion been 
ever answered? Infidels have attacked Christianity. 
But any thing may be attacked. They have slan- 
dered her doctrines ; ridiculed her word ; reviled 
her precepts ; hated her holiness, and influenced 
manv to go and do likewise : but neither hatred, 

2 c 2 



388 LECTURE XII. 

nor reviling, nor ridicule, nor slander, is the test of 
truth. Have infidels ever resorted to the one only 
fair and honest mode of meeting, face to face, the 
whole array of testimony which Christianity ad- 
vances, and endeavouring coolly to prove, as a 
matter of historical evidence, that the authenticity 
of the New Testament, and the credibility of its 
history, are not sustained ; that the miracles of 
Jesus have not been supported with adequate 
testimony ; that the prophecies of the Scriptures 
have met their attestation in no accurate histories ; 
that Christianity was propagated by human force 
alone, and its fruits are those of a corrupt and de- 
ceitful tree ? I answer, no. There is no such effort 
in the books of infidelity. I read of speculations, 
opposed to our facts ; insinuations, in answer to our 
testimonies; sneers, in reply to our solemn reason- 
ings; assertions, where w^e demanded arguments; 
levity and presumption, where an advocate of truth 
would have been serious and humble. But I know 
of no such thing, as a book of infidelity in any 
sense corresponding in the nature, or grounds, or 
spirit of its reasoning, with such arguments for Chris- 
tianity as those of Paley, or Lardner, or Gregory, 
or Wilson, and a thousand others, to which no man 
ever dared to attempt an answer. Infidelity, like an 
insect on the pillar of some stupendous temple, that 
can see no further than the microscopic irregularities 
of the polished marble beneath its feet, may busy 
itself in hunting for little specks in the surface of 
the noble fabric of Christianity ; but has no such 
eye, and takes no such elevated stand, as would 
enable it to survey the whole plan, and judge of its 
pretensions by the mutual adaptation of its parts, the 
harmony and grandeur of its proportions. 

IV. But there is a most important feature in all 
the evidence we have been considering, to which I 
now direct your special attention. It is strictly 



LECTURE XII. 389 

PHILOSOPHICAL. By this I mean that the process, 
by which we have arrived at the truth of Christianity, 
is precisely similar to that by which the astronomer 
arrives at the most certain truths of the celestial 
bodies ; or the chemist determines the most funda- 
mental doctrines of his important science. The 
grand characteristic of the philosophy that Bacon 
illustrated, and Newton so nobly applied, and to 
which all science is so deeply indebted, is that it 
discards speculation ; places no dependence upon 
theory ; demands fact for every thing, and in every 
thing submits implicitly to the decision of fact, no 
matter how incomprehensible, or how opposed by all 
the speculations of the world. This is called induc- 
tive philosophy, in distinction from that of theory 
and conjecture. It collects its facts either by 
personal experiment and observation ; or by the 
testimony of those whose experiments and observa- 
tions, and whose fidelity in recording them, are 
worthy of reliance. From these it makes its careful 
inductions, and determines the laws of science, with 
a degree of plain, unpresuming authority, to which 
every enlightened mind feels it ought to bow. The 
great principle of all Newton's Principia, and that 
on which he set the ladder that raised him to the 
stars, was this simple axiom: '* Whatever is collected 
from this induction ought to be received, notwith- 
standing any conjectural hypothesis to the contrary, 
till such time as it shall be contradicted or limited 
by further observations." But why is not this self- 
evident truth as fundamental in religion, as in as- 
tronomy ? If Reid and Stewart have been per- 
mitted, with universal consent and approbation, to 
apply the simple principles of induction to the phi- 
losophy of the mind ; on what possible ground can 
they be excluded from the philosophy of the soul — 
the religion of the heart ? We beg as a favour, 
what is also demanded by right, that Christianity 



.390 LECTURE xir. 

may be tried by the strictest application of these 
principles. You are called upon for no greater 
effort of credulity ; no more implicit reliance on 
testimony, in order to receive the whole system of 
Christianity as a divme revelation, than you are 
obliged daily to exercise in believing those innu- 
merable facts in natural science, which you have 
not the opportunity of testing by your own experi- 
ments. In regard to these, you simply ask, what 
is the statement? Is it accurate? Is it honest? 
However it may contradict your previous ideas, or 
seem at variance with previous phenomena, or ev^en 
with well-established laws, you only investigate the 
testimony with the more carefulness. This con- 
firmed, you receive the facts ; and, instead of squar- 
ing them by any of your old theories or speculations, 
you proceed to measure the latter by their line, with 
as much submission as if every mystery involved in 
them were perfectly explained. Only behave thus 
reasonably in the investigation of the great question 
we have been considering. Apply to it the measur- 
ing rod of sound philosophy. Let every speculation 
as to its truth be blotted out. Let all conjectural 
hypothesis, for and against it, be set aside. Let the 
infidel and the Christian sit together in the chairs of 
Bacon and of Newton ; and with all that stern rejec- 
tion of mere theory, and that lowly deference to fact, 
which so eminently distinguished those venerable 
patriarchs of modern science, let the New Testament 
be brought to the bar. It professes to be the 
authentic and credible record of the life and doctrine 
of Christ. In it, he professes to have been sent of 
God. Let the question be put. Not, however, is 
this religion consistent with our notions of what man 
wanted, and God might have been expected to re- 
veal ? Not, does it contain any thing strange, or 
mysterious, or apparently contradictory to what we 
have been accustomed to believe ? But let it be a 



LECTURE XII. 291 

plain question of inductive philosophy. Is it sup- 
ported by a competent number of well-certified 
facts ? Is there so much credible testimony, that we 
are warranted in determining that the New Testa- 
ment is authentic; that its history is true; that 
Jesus did work miracles ; that his prophecies have 
been fulfilled? that no human power, unaided by 
that of God, can account for the propagation of his 
Gospel ; that no corrupt imposture could ever pro- 
duce the fruit with which its influence has blessed 
mankind? If there be, then all true philosophy 
says, " Christianity ought to be believed, notwith- 
standing any conjectural hypothesis to the con- 
trary:' Only confine yourselves to this mode of 
investigation, and submit yourselves to this simple 
law of evidence, and, like Newton, you may mount 
a 'adder set on a rock, and reaching to the right 
hand of the throne of God. Proceed on any other 
principle, and, like the heavenly vortices and the 
immense currents of ethereal matter in the philo- 
sophy of Des Cartes, it can only lead you into mex- 
tricable confusion. But, if you adopt the^true 
principles, what becomes of the writmgs of mhdels ? 
Buried amidst the rubbish of vain speculations, and 
ingenious absurdities, and scholastic trifling, of the 
dark ages, when to get wealth by the hypothesis of a 
philosopher's stone, instead of the homely, experi- 
mental realities of diligence and common sense, was 
the great effort of scientific ambition ! Infidelity is 
all speculation. Reduce it to a residuum of induc- 
tive reasoning, and you bring it to nothingness. 
Strip it of its several envelopes of ingenious hypo- 
thesis, and bold assertion, and scoffing declamation, 
and you find nothing left but a man of straw --an 
udy shape to keep the hungry from the bread ot 
life which you need only approach to discover that 
it is made of rags, and stuffed with rottenness. 

The aro-ument for the divine authority ot the 



392 LECTURE XII. 

Gospel is all composed of statements of undeniable 
facts, and of direct inferences legitimately drawn 
from them. I defy the ingenuity of the keenest 
critic to take up the course of reasoning to which 
you have listened, and point out a single theory, or 
speculation — any thing, depended on for proof, but 
plain statements of facts, established as perfectly, 
and bearing as directly upon the point in question, 
as any of the observations of Newton's telescope, or 
of Davy's crucible. Not a word have we said as to 
what might be supposed or conjectured ; what is 
likely or unlikely ; what might have been expected, 
or the contrary ; but have simply inquired, what is 
historically true. Let our opponents do likewise. 
Whether any thing in Christianity appears to them 
probable or improbable ; consistent or inconsistent ; 
agreeable to what they should have expected, or the 
contrary ; wise and good, or ridiculous and useless ; 
is perfectly irrelevant. We can by no means con- 
sent to make their judgments the standard in such 
matters. Infidels are thought to entertain very 
absurd and inconsistent ideas of absurdity and in- 
consistency, and of what should be esteemed as both 
^ood and wise. We ask them to come down from their 
flights of fancy and speculation, and condescend, in 
matters of religion, to do what, in those of science, 
public opinion would force them to, or laugh them 
out of countenance ; to sit down to the plain inves- 
tigation, on principles of common evidence, of the 
facts which support Christianity, determined to be- 
lieve what may be collected therefrom, notwith- 
standing any of their conjectural hypotheses to the 
contrary. Such was once the honest demand of 
astronomy and chemistry upon all the tribes of 
theorists and conjecturalists in those departments 
of science. It is but a short time since our present 
fundamental doctrines, on those subjects, were op- 
posed by philosophers whose speculations they rooted 



LECTURE XII. 393 

Up, precisely as the great doctrines of the Gospel 
are still opposed by infidels whose lives they con- 
demn. By and by, it became irresistibly evident 
that there is no way to science but by the slow and 
humble path of experiment, obtained either by per- 
sonal observation, or by the credible testimony of 
others. As soon as men of scientific minds shall 
learn to be consistent with their own principles, 
and to reason philosophically, as well when a law of 
religion as a law of nature is concerned ; then the 
contradiction will no longer appear, of one loving 
to investigate the works of God, but rejecting His 
word."* 

In truth, the evidence of Christianity rests upon a 
basis which cannot be condemned, without the 
downfall of many of the most important works of 
science. The main facts and reasonings of che- 
mistry are considered undeniable, because expe- 
rimental. But who feels it necessary to make all 
the experiments, or to see them made, before he 
will believe ? Many of the most important, he re- 
ceives, and must receive, upon the testimony of 
others. Thus it is also in astronomical calculations. 
Seldom are the facts obtained from our own obser- 
vations. Many of them, we believe, because they 
are reported by credible witnesses. We come to a 
certain result, by means of a number ta^^en from a 
table of calculations made to our hands, with as 
much assurance, and base our reasonings upon it 
as confidently, as if we had obtained all the elements 
by our own labour ; and yet the very corner-stone 
of our computation is a mere matter of testimony. 
On such reliance are eclipses predicted, and nautical 
observations founded ; and yet a man of science, 
who should evince any scepticism with regard to 

* On the application of the inductive philosophy to the 
evidences of Christianity, see chapters viii. and ix. of 
Chalmers's Evidences. 



394 LECTURE XII. 

events thus ascertained, would render himself no less 
an object of ridicule than if he should cavil about 
the sun's rising to-morrow. What is a page of lo- 
garithms, but a page of assertions, the whole 
value of which is the faith of testimony ? and yet 
upon such data the most momentous calculations in 
the exact sciences are based without a question. 

Pure mathematics are considered as involving 
complete demonstrations. Mathematical reasoning 
is regarded as the very perfection of certainty. 
And yet, in many of its most important operations, 
elements, on which the whole chain depends, are 
assumed on a basis not a particle more sure, to say 
the least, than that on which our belief of the chris- 
tian miracles is founded. " Who would scruple, in 
a geometrical investigation, to adopt as a link in 
the chain a theorem of ApoUonius or of Archi- 
medes, although he might not have leisure at the 
moment to satisfy himself, by an actual examination 
of their demonstrations, that they had been guilty 
of no paralogism, either of accident or design, in 
the course of their reasonings ?''* And yet a result, 
however important, arising from such an investigation, 
none would suspect. A philosopher would rest his 
life upon its certainty. But have we assurance of 
the accuracy and honesty of such men, to whose 
testimony we thus implicitly yield, whether they be 
mathematicians, or chemists, or astronomers, com- 
parable in any degree to our assurance of the com- 
petent knowledge and immoveable honesty of those 
original witnesses of the works of Jesus, who have 
borne such devoted testimony to his miracles? Did 
ApoUonius, or Archimedes, or any philosophers of 
later times, seal their honesty with their blood ? Did 
they suffer the loss of all things, in maintenance of 
their doctrines ? Were they willing to be accounted 
as fools, for the sake of their testimony ? Did Ga- 
* Stewart's Philosophy, ii. 178. 



LECTURE XII. 395 

lileo brave the torture of the inquisition sooner than 
deny his astronomical discoveries? We do not 
require such extreme evidence of integrity, even in 
the greatest questions of scientific testimony. It 
were folly to expect it. We are satisfied with a far 
inferior degree of assurance. And yet such, in ten 
thousands of instances, is the evidence by which we 
know the honesty of those from whom comes our 
testimony to the great facts of the Gospel history. 
They did suffer the loss of all things ; they did 
endure to be treated as the ofFscouring of all things ; 
they did give themselves to the rack, and flame, 
and wild beasts, for the testimony of Jesus. 

I mentioned, in the announcement of this lecture, 
that besides a summary of the whole previous course, 
it would contain an application of the argument to 
the principal objections brought forward by infidels. 
This, in substance, has been exhibited. We know 
of no objection of any importance, which is not put 
to silence and buried, by an appeal from what men 
think to what men have done ; from speculation to 
testimony ; from the ideas of objectors to the facts 
of witnesses. The simple application of the great 
principle of inductive philosophy, that whatever is 
collected by observation ought to be received, any 
hypothesis to the contrary notwithstanding , is the 
smooth white stone in the sling of David, which no 
champion of the Philistines, however gigantic in in- 
tellect or learning, or in the boast of either, can 
stand. I am now speaking of the chief objections. 
I have nothing to do with the ignorant ribaldry of 
such an antagonist as Paine. To this man, the 
purity of the Gospel was its chief deformity; and 
its stern contradiction of his disgusting vices, its 
most irreconcileable inconsistency. He studied the 
Bible to defame it, and scraped the common sewers 
of infidelity for its very lowest and filthiest objec- 
tions ; and then, without honesty even to advert to 



396 LECTURE xir. 

the thousand answers each had received in its day, 
served them up with his own dressing of strong as- 
sertion and acrid ridicule, and advertised them to 
the world as his own, and as unanswerable. Such 
matters we must leave to the writings of those who 
have had stomach to handle them. In the answer 
of Bishop Watson, you may see how entirely boast- 
ing is their strength. They need but the light, to 
make all their show of argument fade away. Their 
best answer is found in the profligate life and de- 
spairing death of the poor miserable man himself. 

The mysteriousness of certain things in Christianity 
is urged as a strong reason for the rejection of its 
divine authority. Many will not believe the doc- 
trine of the Trinity ; the divinity of Christ ; his in- 
carnation; his atoning sacrifice; his resurrection 
from the dead ; his intercession in heaven ; the in- 
fluences of the Holy Spirit upon the hearts of men, 
and our new creation unto holiness by his converting 
power, not to speak of many other of the deep things 
of God— because they are mysteries. Mysteries they 
are unquestionably, and were intended to be so 
regarded. So far as we have need to understand 
them, they are as intelligible as the plain truth that 
man is the union of body and spirit. So far as we 
are not concerned to understand them, they are as 
mysterious, but not more so, than the nature of the 
union between body and spirit in man. Religion 
must have mysteries. '' Religion without its mys- 
teries is a temple without its God." 

Whither shall we flee, to get beyond the region of 
things incomprehensible ? They beset us behind and 
before. If from revealed religion, we go to natural, 
they are there ! The most essential doctrine of all 
religion, the existence of God, is mystery to the 
uttermost. What explanation can be given of his 
self-existence ? His presence in all parts of the 
universe at once ? How he inhabits eternity, having 



LECTURE xn, 397 

no relation to time — and immensity, having no rela- 
tion to space?' If from natural religion^ we go to 
atheism, they are there also I He who denies the 
existence of God, plunges at once into the most 
confounding of all mysteries. What in Scripture 
is more incomprehensible than that this world had 
no Maker? that all its examples of wise and deep 
design had no Designer ? Will you go from thence, 
to the experimental certainties of natural philo- 
sophy ? Mysteries are there also ! Explain the 
attraction of gravitation, the nature of electricity, 
the elastic power of steam, the secrets of evapora- 
tion. What is vegetable, or animal, or spiritual 
life ? In mechanics, we arrive at the utmost cer- 
tainty respecting the relations of force, matter, time, 
motion, space ; while, with the things themselves, 
we have not the least acquaintance. They are 
mysteries, as unsearchable to us as the deepest 
things of revealed religion. How force is commu- 
nicated from one body to another, is no more intel- 
ligible than how the influences of the Holy Spirit 
are communicated to man. Matter, in its changes, 
is as incomprehensible as grace in its operations. 
" There are questions, doubts, perplexities, disputes, 
diversities of opimons, about the one as well as 
about the other. Ought we not, therefore, by a 
parity of reasoning, to conclude that there may be 
several true and highly useful propositions about 
the latter as well as about the former ? Nay, I will 
venture to go farther, and affirm (says a devoted 
teacher of science) that the preponderance of the 
argument is m favour of the propositions of the 
theologian. For while force, time, motion, &c., are 
avowedly constituent parts of a demonstrable science, 
and ought therefore to be presented in a full blaze 
of light, the obscure parts proposed in the Scrip- 
tures for our assent are avowedly mysterious. They 
are not exhibited to be perfectly understood^ but to 



398 LECTURE XII. 

be believed. They cannot be understood without 
ceasing to be what they are. Obscurities, however, 
are felt as incumbrances to any system of philo- 
sophy ; while mysteries are ornaments of the chris- 
tian system, and tests of the humility and faith of 
its votaries. So that if the rejectors of incompre- 
hensibilities acted consistently with their own prm- 
ciples, they would rather throw aside all philosophi- 
cal theories in which obscurities are found, and exist 
as defects, than the system of revealed religion, in 
which they enter as essential parts of that 'mystery 
of godliness* in which the apostles gloried."* 

If from natural philosophy, we ascend to the 
higher branches of ^'dre mathematics, the regions 
of'^unmixed light and certainty, where nought is 
tolerated but strict demonstration, even there will 
mystery find us, and its right hand will hold us. 

Explain the demonstrated fact that '' there are 
curves which approach continually to some fixed 
right line, without the possibility of ever meeting 
itl" that " a space infinite in one sense may, by its 
rotation, generate a solid of finite capacity;" that 
*« a variable space shall be continually augmenting, 
and yet never become equal to a certain finite 

quantitv." 

These are depths which the mathematician can 

solve no better than Christians can explain the great 
mysteries of redemption. But they do not hinder 
him. He can use, as the elements of his calcula- 
tion, doctrines thus incomprehensible, without feel- 
ing any diminution in the certainty of the result. 
Why may not a Christian, with equal reason, m- 
clude among the articles of his belief doctrines no 
more incomprehensible, without embarrassing his 
assurance of the duties and consolations which 

result from them ? i u- i 

If mysteries be valid objections to that wh»cU 

* Gregory's Letters. 



LECTURE XII. 399 

speaks of God and his relations to man; why are 
they not at least as formidable in all those branches 
of human knowledge in which created and finite 
subjects alone are involved ? But they are not 
treated as objections by the mathematician or the 
philosopher. The former asks no question, but 
simply, what is demonstrated'^ The latter, what is 
proved, either by experimeyit or by testimony? If 
phenomena be well attested, he does not wait to 
understand their cause, or mode, or effects ; he does 
not suspend belief till he has harmonized their pe- 
culiarities with a favourite hypothesis, or with pre- 
vious observations. He sets them down among 
the truths of science, and believes ; taking for 
granted, that though he may not understand them, 
there is One that does ; and though he should never 
discover the theory by which such events are shown 
to be in agreement with all others, there is still a 
harmony which pervades ** all things in heaven and 
earth, and under the earth.'* 

Such is the application of inductive philosophy 
to the mysteries of nature. Let the mysteries of 
revelation be treated with equal justice; and in- 
stead of employing them as objections to its truth, ' 
you will acknowledge them as essential to its nature, 
and portions of its glory.* 

But there are many who object to Christianity, 
not only because they cannot understand the nature, 
but because they cannot see the reason, of certain 
things contained in, or connected with it. For 
example, It is well known that God is gracious, and 
merciful, and desireth not the death of a sinner, and 
that He has all power to save whom He will ; and 
yet it is revealed that without the sacrifice of Christ, 
and without conversion and faith, the sinner cannot 
be sjaved. Why, it is asked, this circuitous method, 

* See an admirable article on mysteries in religion, in 
Gregory's Letters, vol. i. 



400 LECT13RE XII. 

this expense of suffering, when a word from the 
Almighty would save the world? An intelligent 
Christian could give many answers to this question ; 
but what if he had none? Would the way of salva- 
tion, as revealed in the Gospel, be in any degree 
less credible ? Shall we refuse to believe the ways 
of God, till He has laid all his reasons before us ? 
Why not as well deny His works on the same in- 
defensible ground ? Why believe that a sick man 
cannot recover without a tedious course of medicine? 
God can raise him with a word! Why cultivate the 
ground, and seek the mediatorial office of the sun 
for the raising and ripening of your grain? God 
can load your fields with harvests without such a 
circuitous process ! Why His power is not exerted 
immediately for these purposes, you can no more 
explain than why a sinner cannot be saved but by 
faith in the sacrifice of Christ. Your belief in the 
importance of intermediate steps depends as little 
upon the reasons of the divine appointments, in one 
case as in the other. 

Again: you read that the Gospel is of inestimable 
importance to the happiness of man ; a wonderful 
exhibition of divine grace to sinners ; and yet there 
are hundreds of millions who have never heard of it, 
and it is asked, why, since God is infinitely good 
and merciful, as well as mighty, such an immeasur- 
able blessing has not been communicated to all 
mankind ? This question is often put as a strong 
objection to the divine origin of the Gospel. Were 
it taught in the Scriptures that those who have never 
had the Gospel will be judged by its law, the objec- 
tion would have force. But there is no such 
doctrine. The objection is reasonable only so far as 
there is reaso.n in a creature's requiring the Creator 
to explain His ways, and admit him to His councils, 
before he will believe them. Does a philosopher 
stand on such grounds? Does he doubt the im- 



LECTURE XII. 401 

mense difference between the gifts and the blessings, 
the privileges and improvements, of a native of Eng- 
land, and those of a savage of Kamschatka, be- 
cause he knows not for what reason it was so 
ordained ? Does he deny that the former are in- 
estimable, because not universal ? Will one refuse 
to believe that he has a mine of gold in his field, or 
that the gold is worth his seeking, because all men 
are not equally favoured? Shall a husbandman 
despise the genial rain upon his grass, because his 
neighbour's fleece is dry? If God has not seen fit 
to reveal the reasons for which He has distributed 
the gifts of nature, of providence, or of grace with an 
unequal hand, I find nothing to complain of. I can 
still believe that those gifts are from above, and are 
excellent, and distributed under the guidance of 
infinite wisdom. 

That there are no difficulties connected with the 
scriptures, and with the doctrines of revealed reli- 
gion, it would be saying too much for the intelli- 
gence, education, and study of the general reader, 
to assert. Until all shall be candid, studious, pa- 
tient, and humble, some will find many difficulties 
in Christianity. If a child, instead of beginning 
arithmetic in the elements, should dive at once into 
the midst of a calculation of algebraic roots and 
powers, he would scarcely escape being stifled with 
difficulties. Thus, however, do most objectors to 
Christianity endeavour to appreciate its doctrines. 
Instead of learning first the first principles, they 
plunge without ceremony amidst the deepest mys- 
teries of the Gospel. Is it wonderful that they 
come out, exclaiming, " Who is sufficient for these 
things?" It is well said, " Objections against a 
thing fairly proved are of no weight. The proof 
rests upon our knowledge, and the objections upon 
our ignorance. It is true that moral demonstra- 
tions and religious doctrines may be attacked in a 

2 D 



402 LECTURE XII. 

very ingenious and plausible manner, because they 
involve questions on which our ignorance is greater 
than our knowledge ; but still our knowledge is 
knowledge ; or in other words, certainty is certainty. 
In mathematical reasoning, our knowledge is greater 
than our ignorance. When you have proved that 
the three angles of every triangle are equal to two 
right angles, there is an end of doubt ; because 
there are no materials for ignorance to work up 
into phantasms, but your knowledge is really no 
more certain than your knowledge on any other 
subject." 

If it be a valid objection to religion, that, to some 
minds, it presents difficulties which cannot be solved, 
then there is no department of human knowledge 
that may not be legitimately condemned. What 
is more certain than the existence of a material 
universe ? or of the necessary connection of cause 
and effect ? But even in these, wise heads have 
succeeded in discovering difficulties which it would 
puzzle much more sensible people to remove by a 
process of reasoning. That matter is infinitely 
divisible, is assumed in science as fundamentally 
certain. That the doctrine, however, involves very 
great difficulties, is palpable to all common sense, 
inasmuch as, to suppose a foot measure divided iiito 
an infinite number of parts, requiring an infinite 
number of portions of time to pass over them, and 
yet to be passed over in a moment, is to make a 
moment infinite, in other words, eternal; for al- 
though it should be said that the portions of time 
would be infinitely small, still they would be por- 
tions of rime, and an infinite number of any por- 
tions of rime must make an infinite duration. Who 
will pretend that in this there is no room for per- 
plexity and doubt? In the mean rime, the opera- 
rions of science, in which the infinite divisibiHty 
of matter is assumed, proceed with as much con- 



LECTURE XII. 403 

fidence as if there were no difficulty connected 
with it.* 

Much is said of the certainty of mathematical 
demonstrations ; but if difficulties that cannot be 
solved are sufficient objections, even here also must 
sentence of condemnation be pronounced. It 
might be shown how trifling are even the definitions 
of geometry, the most exact of all the mathe- 
matical sciences. Its definitions might be alleged, 
upon no inconsiderable grounds, to be nonsensical 
and ridiculous ; its demands or postulates, plainly 
impracticable; its axioms or self-evident propo- 
sitions controvertible, and controverted indeed even 
by themselves. But why are not these things ob- 
jected to the truth of mathematics? What is there 
in the religion of Jesus more encumbered with 
difficulties? 

Were the dispositions of the human heart and the 
idols of a sinner's devotion, as much opposed by the 
demonstrations of mathematics, as by the doctrines 
of Christianity, it would be just as difficult to con- 
vince men of the truth of the former, as of the 
latter. The folly of speaking of a something that 
has length without breadth ; of a point that has no 
parts; of lines for ever approaching and never 
meeting, &c. ; the futility of basing a certain de- 
monstration upon elements so unintelligible and im- 
possible, would be trumpeted to the ends of the 
world. The wicked would no more believe a pro- 
position of geometry, than they will now, a doc- 
trine of redemption. The scoffer would find as 

* " The divisibility, in mfinitum, of any finite extension, 
involves us, whether we grant or deny it, in consequences 
impossible to be explicated, or made in our apprehensions 
consistent ; consequences that carry greater difficulty, and 
more apparent absurdity, than any thing that can follow 
from the notion of an immaterial substance.'*— Loc/c^ow tfw- 



man Understanditi 



S- 



2 D 2 



404 LECTURE XII. 

much to ridicule in Newton's Principia as in Paul's 
Epistles.* 

But we do injustice to the good cause in which 
we are engaged by standing exclusively on the de- 
fensive. Infidelity has too long been indulged with 
the privilege of attack. It is the stratagem of weak- 
ness, to put on a bold front, and make a desperate 
assault. Any arm can strike, but not every breast 
can repel a blow. It is high time infidelity were 
accused and brought to the bar. What proof of a 
single feature of doctrine or of moral principle can it 
produce, after having rejected such evidence as that 
of Christianity? What satisfactory argument for 
the obligation of any thing connected with natural 
religion ; what reason for beheving in a future 
state; what proof even of the existence of God, 
can be offered as worthy of reliance, without a 
shameful inconsistency, by men who, in the immense 
power of evidence sustaining the divine authority 
of the Gospel, can find nothing to convince them? 

We have shown that the argument for Christianity 
is strictly philosophical, because entirely experi- 
mental. It might easily be shown that every system 
of infidelity, so far as it pretends to any religious 
doctrine or precept, is wholly destitute of all claim 
to such a character. What a catalogue of theoretical 
assertions, and unsustained conjectures, and positive 
contradictions, and gross absurdities, and inexpli- 
cable difficulties, might be drawn up against the 
most rational of the infidel systems ! The Deist 
professes to believe that the light of nature is suffi- 
cient for human guidance in all matters of moral 
obligation ; and yet he believes that, notwithstand- 
ing such all-sufficiency, some among those who 
have attempted to follow it, have contended for the 

* See an interesting piece of reasoning, apropos to the 
above, in one of the tracts of the American Tract Society, 
entitled " Conversation with a Young Traveller/' No. 20S. 



J.ECTURE XII. 405 

immortality of the soul, and others have denied it; 
some have maintained that God created all things, 
others that matter is as much from eternity as Him- 
self; some, that He governs and will judge the 
world, others, that He does not concern himself 
about It; some, that God should be \yorshipped, 
others, that all worship is weak superstition ; some, 
that virtue is virtuous and vice vicious, others, that 
there is no distinction in principle between them ; 
that sin is but a matter of custom and opinion, and 
that the indulgence of the lowest passions is no 
more to be blamed than the thirst of a fever or the 
drowsiness of a lethargy. 

Some infidels deny that Jesus ever lived, and yet 
they believe that the whole nation of the Jews, bitter 
enemies of Christianity as they have always been, 
acknowledge that they put him to death on the 
cross. Some confess that there was such a person, 
but accuse him of a most barefaced system of fraud 
and imposture ; and yet they cannot but concede 
that his character w^as eminently pure and excellent. 
Others, to escape such a contradiction, maintain 
that he was a pure, but weak and visionary enthu- 
siast ; and yet they acknowledge that he composed 
and inculcated a system of morals very far superior 
to that of the wisest of the ancient philosophers. 
Infidels profess to believe that the apostles of Christ 
were instigated by mercenary considerations, and 
yet that they willingly suffered the loss of all things; 
by ambitious considerations, and yet that they sub- 
niitted cheerfully to ignominy and shame ! According 
to infidels, they were devoted to a selfish scheme of 
personal benefit, and yet were always going about 
doing good, without the least regard to their own 
convenience or pleasure. They were gross deceivers, 
it is said, and yet they endured all sufferings, and 
sacrificed their lives, in confirmation of their sin- 
cerity. They were weak fanatics, and yet the 



406 LECTURE XII. 

Strongest and most learned minds could not resist 
the power and wisdom with which they spake. In- 
fidels deny that Jesus ever wrought miracles, but 
cannot deny that his bitterest enemies, who had infi- 
nitely better opportunities of judging than they can 
boast, confessed that he did. Infidels pretend that 
the prophecies of the Bible were nothing more than 
guesses, and that all correspondence between them 
and subsequent history was a mere matter of chance; 
and yet they cannot find, among all the guesses in 
the Bible, a single failure ; while they cannot deny 
that many guesses have succeeded, in the minutest 
particulars, in spite of a proportion of chances 
against them too great for numbers to express. In- 
fidels contend that the Gospel is against all reason 
and common sense, as well as truth ; they laugh at 
the efforts of modern apostles to convert the nations 
of heathenism to the faith of Christ, as visionary and 
fruitless. Nothing seems to them more impossible 
than that such an enterprise should succeed. And 
yet, according to their wisdom, when only twelve 
missionaries, with none of the education, or expe- 
rience, or human support and countenance ; with 
none of the facilities for multiplying books, and 
disseminating knowledge, which modern labourers 
possess; when twelve despised, persecuted Jews, 
undertook a similar work, not among ignorant bar- 
barians, but polished Greeks ; and when, in less 
than forty years, their cause was co-extensive with 
the known world ; then there was nothing wonderful 
or unaccountable ; it was a mere matter of human 
contrivance, and enthusiastic perseverance ; the work 
of men alone, and of weak, superstitious, credulous, 
simple, and deceitful men, though the only work of 
the kind since the creation of the world ! 

It were easy to proceed much further with this 
array of the contradiction and difficulties into which 
men are necessarily brought by rejecting the evi- 



LECTURE XIII. 407 

dences of Christianity. But we have said enough to 
show, that if infidels were put upon the defensive a 
little more frequently, they would have much less 
time to be creeping, with poisoned arrows, around 
the outworks of Christianity. Let them pcmt out, 
in the belief of the Gospel, any thing like the con- 
tradictions and absurdities involved in a profession 
of infidelity, and it shall e renounced as unworthy 
the countenance of a rational being. 



LECTURE XIIL 

INSPIRATION OF THE SCRIPTURES, AND CON- 
CLUDING OBSERVATIONS. 

The external evidences of Christianity, as a system 
of faith, divinely revealed, we consider to have been 
closed with the lecture next preceding the last. On 
that subject, we shall offer no additional argument. 
But there remains one very important matter of in- 
quiry. J „ 

Christianity and the Scriptures are essentially asso- 
ciated. Without the latter, we should not have re> 
ceived the former. But, however inseparable in the 
use of their benefits, they are quite distmct in the 
proof of their infallible origin. It is one thmg to 
show that the doctrines taught in the scriptures are 
divine ; and another, that the books containing those 
doctrines are divine. The former, we think, has 
been fully established. The latter has not yet been 
attempted. We have proved that the books of 
scripture are authentic and credible ; the works ot 
the authors whose names they bear; and correct 
narratives of such matters of fact as they profess to 
relate But were we to stop here, we should leave 
the Bible on a level, in point of authority, with many 
other books of the christian religion, which contain 



408 LECTURE XIII. 

the truth, and, so far as we can judge, contain no- 
thing else ; and yet have no pretension to any 
other than a hitman origin. In this case, we should 
have no ultimate and sure appeal for either doctrine 
or duty ; a door would be open for all manner of 
interference, on the part of " man's wisdom," for 
the perversion and corruption of the truth ; the 
most essential features of the Gospel, on the easy 
plea that the apostles, being men, may sometimes 
have misunderstood their Master, would be acces- 
sible to the most ruinous suspicions of over-statement 
or misconception. 

We have need, not only of a divine system of re- 
ligion, but of a divine teacher of that system. The 
latter was possessed by the apostles in the person of 
Christ, while he continued with them ; and subse- 
quently in the special presence and guidance of the 
Holy Ghost, whom the Saviour promised as a Com- 
forter, to lead them into all truth. In place of the 
privileges thus possessed, what remains to which may 
confidently be referred every question of religious 
doctrine and duty, and by which our minds may be 
safely led to the whole truth as it is in Jesus ? *^Are 
the scriptures infallible ? In other words, are they 
divine ? Have they been ^* given by inspiration of 
God V This brings us at once to the main point of 
the present lecture — the inspiration of the 
SCRIPTURES — a subject which, however eminently 
important, has had so much done, preparatory to its 
consideration, in our previous lectures, that it need 
not occupy at present a large portion of your time. 

The distmct proposition to which your attention is 
called, I would express partly in the language of 
St. Peter : The Scriptures came not by the will of 
man : but holy men of God wrote as they were 
moved by the Holy Ghost ; or, in the words of St. 
Paul, ''All Scripture is given by inspiration of 
God.** 



LECTURE XIII. 409 

By inspiration is understood, " Such a communi- . 
cation by the Holy Spirit to the minds of the sacred 
writers, of those things which could not have been 
otherwise known, and such an effectual superintend- 
ency, as to those particulars concerning which they 
might otherwise obtain information, as sufficed ab- 
solutely to preserve them from every degree of error 
in all things which could in the least affect any of 
the doctrines or precepts contained in their writings, 
or mislead any person who considered them as a di- 
vine and infallible standard of truth and duty/* 

This definition is perfectly consistent with what a 
critic would regard as a fault of style in a book of 
Scripture ; or a philosopher, as scientifically inac- 
curate ; or a rhetorician, as a departure from the 
rules of rhetorical writing. It is entirely compatible 
with the evident fact of the several authors having 
written in such various idioms and styles, as their 
respective talents, habits, associations, or circum- 
stances rendered most easy and natural. While, at 
the same time, it places all the sacred writers, how- 
ever various their modes and minds, on the same 
footing of divine authority, and gives to all portions 
of the Bible an equal claim to be received as the 
oracles of God, thus writing over the just interpre- 
tation of each single verse the title of Infallibility. 

In examining into the degree of authority to be 
attached to the Scriptures, we can at once make a 
very direct appeal. We can go to the Scriptures 
themselves. Having already established their credi- 
bility, we have a full warrant to depend on them 
for a true statement of the words of the Saviour and 
his apostles. Having established also the funda- 
mental doctrine that the Saviour and his apostles 
were divinely sent and attested ; we have a right to 
rely implicitly on their words, as truth divinely sealed 
and certified. Our way, therefore, is plain. We 
must search the Scriptures for any words of the Lord 



410 LECTURE XII [. 

Jesus and of his apostles concerning the subject be- 
fore us. We have but one question to answer : 
Does the New Testament bear witness that the seve- 
ral books composing the Bible were treated or repre- 
sented by the Saviour or his apostles as divinely in- 
spired"^. This determined in the affirmative, the 
inspiration of the Scriptures is decided, until the 
whole argument of the preceding lectures shall be 
proved inconclusive. 

I. Let us divide the question, and begin our in- 
quiry with the Old Testament Scriptures. 

1st. It is undeniable that the Saviour and his 
apostles regarded the Old Testament with at least as 
much reverence as did the Jews in their day. They 
reproved the latter for many errors of doctrine and 
of practice ; for darkening the Scriptures by false 
interpretations ; and for making them of none effect 
through their traditions ; but nowhere do we read 
the least insinuation of their having censured the 
Jews for paying too much respect to the Scriptures, 
or for allowing them too much authority. On the 
contrary, they evidently joined in, most earnestly, 
with the Jewish mind on this subject, and, instead 
of attempting to unsettle, aimed directly at increas- 
ing its habit of implicit submission to the Old Testa- 
ment writings. But had the Jews been erroneous 
in the high degree of reverence with which they re- 
garded those sacred books ; such countenance and 
example on the part of our Lord and his ambassa- 
dors could not have been shown, consistently with 
the perfect truth and openness which marked all 
their dealings. 

Now, be it observed, that the Jews, in the time of 
Christ, considered the writings of the Old Testament 
as divinely inspired : not merely in respect to their 
doctrines, but their whole matter and substance. 
Josephus says, that in his time they were universally 
believed to have been written by men ** as they 



LECTURE XIII. 411 

learned them of God himself hy inspiration^'' and 
were justly believed to be ** divine." He draws a 
wide distinction between the histories of the Jewish 
people which were written since the time of Arta- 
xerxes, and those contained in the Bible, and gives, 
as a reason why the former had not been received as 
having so much authority as the latter, that, since 
Artaxerxes there had not been a succession of in- 
spired men. " How firmly we have given credit,'' 
he says, ** to these books of our own nation, is evi- 
dent from what we do ; for during so many ages as 
have already passed, no one hath been so bold as 
either to add any thing to them, to take any thing 
from them, or to make any change in them ; but it 
is become natural to all Jews, immediately and from 
their very birth, to esteem those books to contain 
divine doctrines, and to persist in them, and, if occa- 
sion be, willingly to die for them.''* Hence we see 
that Jesus and his apostles, in coinciding with, and 
m employing and promoting the current sentiment 
of the Jewish people in their days, must be con- 
sidered as having really and in the broadest sense 
espoused and confirmed the doctrine of the divine 
inspiration of the Old Testament scriptures. 

2d. But, unanswerable e^s is the above attestation, 
we have a direct assertion on the part of St. Paul of 
still greater importance. Having reminded Timothy, 
that from a child he had known '' the holy scrip- 
tures,'' which were able to make him wise unto sal- 
vation through faith in Christ Jesus, he makes this 
positive and conclusive declaration : ''All scripture 
is given by the inspiration of God, and is profitable 
for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruc- 
tion in righteousness ; that the man of God may be 
perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works."* 

Here, then, is the plain testimony of one, whose 
knowledge and veracity we have ascertained, that 

♦ Cont. ApioD, b. i. § 7, 8. t 2 Tim. iii. 15—16, 17. 



412 LECTURE XIII. 

whatever in his time was included under the name 
of ** scripture," or " holy scriptures," was of divine 
inspiration. We have only to ask, therefore, to 
what books Paul applied that name. It was a n^ime 
of common use in his day. Josephus and Philo 
frequently speak of ** the divine scriptures," and 
** the holy scriptures." It is manifest, therefore, 
that Paul meant to be understood as asserting the 
divine inspiration of that collection of sacred books 
to which the Jews notoriously applied such names ; 
in other words, the books of the Old Testament. 
He regarded them all as scripture. He declared 
them all inspired. 

Now, that under the same title we have the same 
collection of writings is certain ; not only from the 
important fact that on this head there is a perfect 
agreement between our bibles and those of the whole 
Jewish nation at the present day ; but also from the 
testimony of Josephus, who, although he has not 
mentioned the names of the several books considered 
as scripture in his time, has given us their number, 
and so described them, that their identity with ours 
cannot be mistaken. He takes care to speak of 
them ** as of divine authority."* In addition to 
this, we have the testimony of the New Testament 
as to the canon of the Old. For, besides the books 
of Moses, which the former expressly mentions as of 
divine authority, it also specifies almost all the other 
books of our Old Testament as belonging, in the 
time of Christ, to the sacred canon of the Jews. 
Some are omitted, only because the mentioning of 
any is incidental. Nothing but a formal enume- 
ration can be expected to be complete. That none 
are excepted against, is proof that all were received 
by the Lord and his apostles. 

Hence, we are fully .warranted to believe that 
*' all scripture" in the mouth of St. Paul, meant 

* Cont. Apion, b. i. ^ 8, 



LECTURE XIII. 413 

all the books of the Old Testament which Jews and 
Christians at present unite in receiving as divine 
oracles ; consequently, we have apostolic authority 
in proof that they were all *^ given by inspiration of 
God." 

Much additional evidence to the same point might 
be added ; but with any who acknowledge the argu- 
ment of the previous lectures, and thence believe 
that whatever St. Paul asserted, as a doctrine of 
Christianity, is true, the above simple reasoning will 
be amply sufficient to confirm the divine inspiration 
of the Old Testament. 

II. Let us proceed to the second division of our 
subject, and carry our inquiry to the books of the 
New Testament. 

1st. The inspiration of the New Testament may 
be naturally and reasonably inferred from that of 
the Old. In this, we argue by analogy. No reason 
can be given why those holy men of old, who com- 
posed the books of the other Testament, should have 
written, not, '^ by the will of man," but '* as they 
were moved by the Holy Ghost,'' that does not 
apply with much greater force to the writers of the 
later volume. The economy of the Old Testament 
was to cease at the advent of Christ; that of the 
New will endure to the end of the world. The 
former was intended only for a single nation, and 
adapted but to a country of narrow boundaries. 
The latter was framed to include all nations, and is 
intended by God to be co-extensive with the globe. 
The law had only ** a shadow of good things to 
come;" the Gospel has *' the very image of the 
things ;" the first was a system of types, *' which 
stood only in meats, and drinks, and divers 
washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed until the 
time of reformation ;'' the second (the time of refor- 
mation being come) is a system of direct revelation ; 
the veil has been rent in twain, so that it may be 



414 LECTURE XIII. 

said, in comparison with the previous dispensation, 
that we ** no longer see through a glass, darkly, but 
face to face/' One grand distinction of the economy 
of the Gospel is, that it is the dispensation of the 
Spirit, That peculiar feature in which its covenant 
is '* a better covenant, established upon better pro- 
mises'* — ** a new covenant" — is found in this, that 
it is a spiritual coveriant ; its promises, its privileges, 
its duties, its parties, are all spiritual. Its cha- 
racter, in this respect, is seen in that stipulation of 
its Divine Author, *' I will put my laws into their 
mind, and write them in their hearts J' So much, 
therefore, does this ** ministration of righteousness 
exceed in glory'' all that preceded it, that although 
there had never risen, under the Old Testament 
system, a greater than John the Baptist ; yet " he 
that is least in the kingdom of God (i. e. under the 
New Testament system,) is greater than he." 

Now, is it supposable that, under a dispensation 
so limited in extent and duration as that of the law ; 
so carnal in its ordinances; so obscure in its reve- 
lations ; serving only ** unto the example and sha- 
dow of heavenly things ;" the sacred books should 
have been given by inspiration of God ; and yet, 
that under the far better covenant of the Gospel, 
designed for all mankind, and to stand while the 
world endures; a dispensation so eminently distin- 
guished for the outporing of the Spirit ; for the spi- 
ritual gifts of its earliest ministers, and the spiritual 
duties and blessings of all its members; we should 
be left to a standard of truth and duty, dictated 
only by the wisdom, composed only under the super- 
intending care, of fallible men ? Surely the inspira- 
tion of the New Testament is naturally and reason- 
ably inferred from that of the Old. 

2d. The same conclusion necessarily arises from 
the evident inspiration of the apostles in their 
preaching and other official actions. 



LECTURE XIII. 415 

It was expressly promised by the Lord, that when 
they should stand before enemies, in defence of the 
Gospel, they should speak by inspiration of God. 
In such circumstances, their direction was, '' Take 
no thought how or what ye shall speak. For it is 
not ye that speak, but the Spirit of your Father 
which speaketh in you." " The Holy Ghost shall 
teach you in that same hour what ye ought to say." 
*' I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which all 
your adversaries shall not be able to gainsay nor 
resist.'* We have no reason to suppose that these 
promises of inspiration were confined to the special 
circumstances referred to in the passages above 
quoted. The apostles were to be placed in many 
others, for which they would be quite as needful. 
Certain circumstances were particularly spoken of by 
the Lord, because in them the faith of his apostles 
would be particularly tried. 

But inspiration was promised by the Saviour in 
terms of the most comprehensive kind. A little be- 
fore his crucifixion, when the hearts of his disciples 
(Judas having left them) were greatly troubled at the 
assurance that he was soon to be taken from them ; 
he promised to send them a Comforter— the Holy 
Spirit— who should abide with them for ever. This 
blessed Person, he called repeatedly '' the Spirit of 
truth." He was distinctly promised to the apostles, 
as a substitute, in all respects, for the presence, the 
guidance, the instructions of their Lord himself. 
The great consolation of such a substitute consisted 
in his being to the apostles invisibly, just what 
Jesus had been to them visibly ; so that they might 
consider themselves to be divinely directed and in- 
structed under his influence, in a manner quite as 
direct and infallible, as if they had still the Master's 
voice to hear, and his footsteps to follow. They 
were assured that " the Spirit of truth" would teach 
* Matt. X. 19, 20. Luke xii. 12 ; and xxi. 15. 



416 LECTURE XIH. 

them whatever knowledge their duties might require. 
*' He shall teach you all things,'" " He will lead 
you into all truth/' Had they forgotten any por- 
tion of their Lord's instructions ? *' The Spirit 0/ 
truth,'' said he, ** shall bring all things to your 
remembrance whatsoever I have said unto you,** 
*^ He shall take of mine, and shall show it unto 
you,** Even the knowledge of the future was pro- 
mised to the apostles, by the inspiration of the Holy 
Ghost, "i/e will show you things to come.** They 
were directed to tarry in Jerusalem after his death, 
until they should receive '' power from on high,** 
Now all these promises are positive proofs that the 
apostles were inspired in their ministry, as soon as 
the fulfilment took place. Thus, when the day of 
Pentecost was fully come, and the Spirit descended 
upon them, *Uhey were all filled with the Holy 
Ghost," and '' began to speak as the Spirit gave 
them utterance.'' By this inspiration, they were 
enabled to preach, in all languages, the wonderful 
works of God. The sermon of Peter, on that day, 
was spoken under this influence. By the same 
help he discerned the spirit of Ananias and Sapphira. 
Their lie was unto the Holy Ghost, inasmuch as it 
was unto one whom the Holy Ghost inspired. Di- 
rected by the same Spirit, Peter journeyed from 
Joppa to the house of Cornelius, and first opened 
the door of faith to the Gentiles. Paul by inspira- 
tion, went forth on his mission from Antioch to the 
lesser Asia; while, '* full of the Holy Ghost,'* he 
searched the conscience of Elymas, the sorcerer, and 
punished his wickedness with blindness. When the 
apostles, and elders, and brethren were assembled in 
council about the question sent up from Antioch for 
their decision, they consulted and determined as 
they were guided by inspiration of God. ** It seem- 
eth good to the Holy Ghost,** was the solemn sanc- 
tion annexed to their sentence. They claimed to be 



LECTURE XIII. 417 

always received as inspired. Their speech and their 
preaching, they asserted, were ** in demonstration oi 
the Spirit,'' ** not in the words which man's wisdom 
teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost teacheth." It 
is expressly declared by St. Peter, that his brethren 
and himself ** preached the Gospel with the Holy 
Ghost sent down from heaven." All these state- 
ments, and many others which might be adduced, 
abundantly confirm the position, that the apostles, 
in their preaching and other official actions, were in 
the highest sense inspired. 

Hence it would seem to be very naturally and 
reasonably inferred, that when they wrote for the 
permanent guidance of the churches, they were in- 
spired also. Can it be supposed that St. Paul, in 
preaching to the Ephesians or Corinthians, spake 
as he was moved by the Holy Ghost ; and yet was 
entirely bereft of that divine aid, when he sat down 
to the much more important work of composing 
epistles to those churches ? When it is considered 
hov/ entirely all the oral communications of the 
apostles ceased to be remembered, in a short time 
after they were uttered, except as they were recorded 
in the scriptures ; and how their written communi- 
cations to the churches have remained unmutilated 
these eighteen hundred years ; are now circulated 
in upwards of one hundred and seventy languages ; 
have been read among all people, and will continue 
to be the guide and treasure of the church to the 
end of the world ; can it be believed that in these 
the apostles were left to their own fallible wisdom, 
while guided in the others by the inspiration of God? 
Such an opinion would be absurd, in the extreme. 

It seems to be a necessary conclusion from the 
above premises, that the authors of the New Testa- 
ment were divinely inspired, as well when writing 
for all people and all ages> as when speaking to the 
congregation of a single synagogue. 

2e 



418 LECTURE XIII. 

3d. If the apostles did not intend to impress the 
church with a belief that they wrote by divine in- 
spiration, they adopted the very means that were 
most likely to lead its members into a most import- 
iant heresy. St. Paul, in an epistle to Timothy, 
which he knew would be universally circulated, 
published the broad assertion, ^' All Scripture is 
given by inspiration of God.'' Now, it is worthy of 
note, that the epistle, containing this declaration, is 
generally supposed to have been written after all 
the other works of St. Paul, and but a short time 
before his martyrdom at Rome. At any rate, it was 
one of his latest works. The Gospel of St. Matthew 
had been written and circulated at least twenty years. 
Those by St. Mark and St. Luke were already in the 
possession of the churches. The same is true of the 
Acts of the Apostles. We know of no part of the 
whole New Testament that was written subsequently 
to the uttering of the above declaration, except the 
Gospel, Epistles, and Revelation by St. John. 

In connexion with this, be it observed, that when 
the primitive christians received an Epistle or Gospel 
from one of the apostles or evangelists, they regarded 
it as a portion of Holy Scripture, By this familiar 
name, it was universally known, and with this high 
honour it was always treated. Precisely as the 
writers of the New Testament speak of the books of 
the Old Testament, calling them the Scriptures, do 
the christian writers, who were contemporaneous with 
the apostles, continually quote their books. This 
cannot be questioned. Then, consider the circum- 
stances of the churches. Theyhave^in possession, 
and in daily use, a number of writings which have 
been sent them by the apostles and evangelists, the 
greater part of them by St. Paul himself. It is well 
known to the latter, that those writings are uni- 
versally revered and read as Holy Scriptures, In 
these circumstances, he declares that '' all Scripture 



LECTURE XIII. 419 

is given by inspiration of God." How are they to 
understand him ? Shall they say, '* He speaks in 
that passage only of the Jewish Scriptures ?" His 
primary reference was unquestionably to them. But 
in what sense can his assertion be true of all Scrip- 
ture, if so large a part as that comprising the New 
Testament came only ** by the will of man V* But 
this is not all that the apostles did to promote the 
belief of the inspiration of their writings. 

The christian churches were accustomed to appeal 
to the Old Testament as an inspired volume. A 
large number of their members had been educated 
in the Jewish faith, and by habit, as well as reflec- 
tion, always associated the idea of divine inspiration 
with that of a book of Scripture. Consequently, 
when the writings of the New Testament were re- 
ceived ; when they came to occupy, in regard to the 
christian church, a corresponding place to that of the 
Old Testament books in regard to the Jewish church ; 
when they were honoured, by universal consent, with 
the same title of ** Holy Scriptures'' as was applied 
to the sacred books of the former dispensation ; it 
was extremely natural that the churches should treat 
them precisely as they treated the older books, and 
believe them also to have been written by inspiration 
of God. That they did thus regard them is indis- 
putable. Clement, bishop of Rome, a contemporary 
of the apostles, says, '* Look into the Holy Scriptures, 
which are the true words of the Holy Ghost. Take 
the epistle of the blessed Paul, the apostle, into your 
hands ; verily he did by the Spirit admonish you." 
The primitive christians rejected from the canon of 
Scripture certain books, because, though true and 
edifying, they were not inspired by the Holy Ghost. 
They habitually spoke of the New Testament as 
'' The Word of God,*' " The Voice of God," ** The 
Oracles of the Holy Ghost." , 

Now, in such circumstances, how would the 

2 e2 



420 LECTURE XIII. 

apostles, as men of common honesty and candour, 
have acted, in case they did not consider their 
writings to be inspired ? Knowing the natural 
tendency and the actual state of pubhc opinion 
among the churches, could they have been even 
silent on this subject? Must they not have warned 
their disciples against a disposition so dangerous, and 
a heresy so conspicuous ? Would not the most 
ordinary measure of humility and faithfulness have 
Impelled them to draw the line of distinction, too 
plainly to be mistaken, between what they had 
written by their own wisdom, and what holy men of 
old had written ** as they were moved by the Holy 
Ghost ?" What course do they pursue ? Not only 
do they allow the natural disposition of those ac- 
customed to attach inspiration to Scripture to have 
its way ; not only do they say nothing having the 
least tendency to correct the universal impression 
of the churches on so vital a point ; but they adopt 
the very course which was calculated directly to con- 
firm all their prepossessions. They introduce their 
writings in a manner of authority precisely similar to 
that of the inspired men of older times. Witness the 
beginning of the Epistle to the Galatians, ** Paul an 
apostle (not of men, neither by man, but by Jesus 
Christ, and God the Father, who raised him from the 
dead) unto the churches of Galatia," &c. Peter, 
speaking of the epistles of Paul, as familiarly known 
among christians, expressly numbers them among 
*^ the Scriptures/' and puts them upon a level with 
** the other Scriptures,''* which Jews and Christians 
alike considered to have been written by inspiration. 
Paul again speaks of the writings of the " apostles 
and prophets" as constituting together that good 
foundation on which christians were built, ** Jesus 
Christ himself being the chief corner stone. "f And 
After Peter had particularly included the epistles of 
* 2 Pet. iii. IC. t Eph. ii. 20. 



LECTURE XIII. 421 

St. Paul among the Scriptures, the latter published 
his declaration that '' all Scripture is given by in- 
spiration of God/' 

If those holy men did not intend to promote the 
belief of the inspiration of their writings; if they 
were desirous of teaching the churches to make a 
wide distinction between their works, as merely 
human and fallible, and those of Moses and the 
prophets, as divine and infallible; how singularly 
did they mistake the way; how exactly did they in- 
culcate what they wished to contradict, and build up 
what they were bound to destroy ! 

In what manner the primitive churches understood 
their instructions, is manifest; and on the suppo- 
sition that the apostles taught that their writings 
were not inspired, it forms a singular proof of the 
great obscurity with which they must have expressed 
themselves. Justin Martyr, a contemporary with 
St. John, says that " the Gospels were written by. 
men full of the Holy Ghost." Irenseus, a few years 
later, declares that ** the scriptures were dictated by 
the Spirit of God, and that, therefore, it is wicked- 
ness to contradict them, and sacrilege to alter them." 
*' The Gospel," he says, " was first preached, and 
afterwards, by the will of God, committed to writing, 
that it might be, for time to come, the foundation 
and pillar of our faith." 

Enough, it is believed, has now been exhibited to 
satisfy any reasonable mind that it was the intention 
of the writers of the New Testament, and of their 
blessed Master, that the church should regard their 
works as having been dictated and rendered infal- 
lible by divine inspiration. To those who acknow- 
ledge that Christ and his apostles were commissioned 
and taught of God, this is perfect evidence of tha 
great doctrine at which we have been arriving. For 
those who, after all that has been said in our 
preceding lectures, shall still refuse to acknowledge 



422 LECTURE XIII. 

the Lord Jesus and his apostles as divinely commis- 
sioned and endowed, we have no more argument. 
Much additional reasoning might be offered; but 
such is the conclusiveness of what has been adduced, 
that it may be said, without presumption, if they be- 
lieve not upon such evidence, ** neither would they 
believe though one rose from the dead."* 

We may now conclude a course of Lectures, 
which has already extended far beyond the antici- 
pations of the author. Having arrived at the divine 
authority of Christianity, and the divine inspiration 
of the scriptures, we have not only a religion re- 
vealed from God, but an infallible expression of 
its doctrines and duties. We have the guide, as 
well as the way, to everlasting life — both equally 
certain, equally divine. 

Let us be thankful for such unspeakable gifts. 
Next to the mercy of a Saviour — alDle and ready 
** to save to the uttermost all that come unto God 
by Him" — is the book of the inspiration of God, 
which, as a lamp to our feet, and a light to our path, 
conducts to such a Friend, and teaches us, without 
mistake, all that we must do to be saved. 

Let us consider our obligation to study this 
blessed book with the most serious attention and 
care. What can be more ungrateful, more disobe- 
dient, more sinful in the sight of God, than the total 
neglect, or the careless reading, of a book which His 
own Spirit indited for our express guidance and con- 
solation ? '* Search the scriptures 1" is the injunc- 
tion as well of our reason, as of the Lord Jesus. 
*' Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly in all 
wisdom," is a command as delightful in its obe- 
dience, as it is authoritative in its declaration. 

* For a much more extended and able view of the inspi- 
ration of the New Testament, see Dick on the Inspiration of 
the Scriptures, or Lectures on the same, by Leonard Woods, 
D.D.y Andover. 



LECTURE xiir. 423 

Let us yield implicit submission to the decisions 
of the scriptures. In them we read the oracles of 
God — the mind of the Spirit — infallible wisdom. 
As inspired pa^s, such must be their authority. It 
is plain duty, therefore, to bring every question of 
truth or practice to their judgment ; and to bow, 
without a question, or a murmur, or the least re- 
serve of mind or heart, to whatever they require. 
To proceed on any other principle ; to bring any 
thoughts of ours into the least competition with the 
decision of the scriptures ; to submit to one por- 
tion of the Bible more than to another ; to withhold 
assent to any of its doctrines, till we can see their 
necessity, or reasonableness, or their consistency 
with certain notions of human wisdom, is a practical 
denial of the divine authority of the whole volume, 
and deserves no other name than unbelief. 

Let us search the scriptures daily ; for they were 
made to be daily " profitable for doctrine, reproof, 
correction, and instruction in righteousness." It is 
only when taken as an intimate companion and 
friend, that the Bible throws off its reserve, and ap- 
pears in all its excellence. Then it speaks to the 
heart, and begins to develop treasures of conso- 
lation as numerous as the wants of sinners, as end- 
less as the grace of their Saviour. We can well 
perceive the hand of God in the structure of Chris- 
tianity, while standing without, and looking only 
upon its walls and bulwarks ; but, like the temple 
of Jerusalem, we must enter within the holy place, to 
** behold the fair beauty of the sanctuary," the fine 
gold of its workmanship, and the glory of Him 
** who dwelleth between the cherubim." " The secret 
of the Lord is with them that fear him ; and he will 
show them his covenant." 

Let us search the scriptures with prayer ; pray- 
ing always with all prayer and supplication in the 
Spirit," that we may be " filled with the knowledge 



424 LECTURE XIII. 

of His will, in all wisdom and spiritual understand- 
ing/' The key of the ark, in which are laid up the 
tables of testimony, is prayer. By this alone can 
we get into ** the secret place of the Most High," 
and be taught of God. He who, without prayer, 
should seek to enter within the veil, and obtain a 
view of the divine glory as it shines within the Scrip- 
tures, would act no less presumptuously than Aaron, 
the high priest, had he attempted, without his brazen 
censer and his incense, to pass the veil of the holy 
of holies, and stand before the mercy-seat. " My 
son,'* saith the Scripture, " if thou criest after know- 
ledge, and liftest up thy voice for understanding ; if 
thou seekest her as silver, and searchest for her as 
hid treasures ; then shalt thou understand the fear 
of the Lord, and find the knowledge of God." 



*^ Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scrip- 
tures to be written for our learning, grant that we 
may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, 
and inwardly digest them, that by patience, and 
comfort of thy Holy Word, we may embrace and 
ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, 
which thou hast given us in our Saviour, Jesus 
Christ," 



FINIS. 



London : H. Fisher, R. Fisher, & P. Jackson, Printers. ^ 




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